


(so tell me to run) or dare to sit & watch what we’ll become.

by moonflowering



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, Prison AU, The Haunting - Freeform, damie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29069247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowering/pseuds/moonflowering
Summary: Damie Prison AUWhen Dani Clayton lands a teaching position at a local prison, her world is turned upside down by an unlikely source.
Relationships: Dani Clayton & Hannah Grose, Dani Clayton & Jamie, Dani Clayton & Owen Sharma, Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose & Owen Sharma, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma
Comments: 134
Kudos: 269





	1. the power of pancakes.

Jamie shuffles into the classroom in single file with the rest of the female inmates who had, for some reason, signed up for this god forsaken course. It was a GCSE class, three times a week. Maths and English alternatively. It was advertised as an opportunity for society’s ‘less fortunate’ to get some qualifications for when they get out – if they get out, anyway. She appreciated the prison’s offer, the minimal effort that had been put into educating ‘disadvantaged women’ like her. That’s what they call people like her when they pitch these kind of ideas to the council, anything to get more funding, money that will undoubtedly end up right back in their own pockets. When they’re not using people like her to fill their wallets, they aren’t so gentle in how they refer to her. They call her a whore, a dirty slut who got what was coming to her. They whistle at her while they touch her arse, and then spit out an insult at her when she turns away from them. 

‘What, are you a dyke or something?’ one of them sneers into her ear as she enters the room. She keeps her head down as his fingers dig into her forearm. He’s inches from her face and his breath smells like horse shit. 

Jamie grits her teeth. ‘What’s it to you? Is your ego so big that you can’t handle a woman not wanting to suck you off for a bag of smack?’ she utters. His grip tightens and she can feel his fingernails through her shitty prison-issued grey sweatshirt. She’s aware that she wont win, that she’ll end up in solitary if she doesn’t control her mouth. Her release date is three months away and she can’t afford to jeopardise it. Not again.

‘Keep your dirty fucking mouth shut.’ The guard spits as he speaks, releasing her arm and shoving her past him. She wipes his saliva from her cheek with her sleeve and makes her way over to a seat in the back left corner of the room. She didn’t want to stick out, or be called on to answer. She was only really here for the change of scenery, a break in the monotonous routine she has re-enacted every fucking day for the past 9 months. She wakes, she eats, she reads, she sleeps. She works in the gardens on Tuesdays and Sundays and she goes to mandated therapy every Monday. That’s it, that’s her life here, and all for someone who didn’t give two fucks about what happened to her. The wrong kind of love can make a person do some really stupid shit. She knows that now. 

At a glance, the room looks like any ordinary classroom. There’s a blackboard on the wall opposite her, and small plastic desks line the room. Only half of them are filled. The other women in the room seem to have had a similar idea to Jamie. Signing up for their own entertainment, to have a laugh and maybe even catch a glimpse of the world still turning outside of the prison’s walls. 

Jamie wasn’t there to be educated, not really. It’s not like she wasn’t capable, not getting her GCSE’s was more of a circumstance thing than a lack of intelligence. Her childhood was littered with her parents’ mistakes, held together by the consequences of problems she didn’t cause. She had always been on the back foot, one trauma after another and they just seemed to keep coming. When they weren’t calling her names they were laughing at her for her tussled hair or the shoes that were two sizes too small. At home she was responsible for her brothers, for her dad when he passed out on the couch with an empty bottle still clutched in his hand – and when the social finally got involved she was moved around so much that she was never at one school for more than a year. The odds had always been against her, and it was only recently that she had realised. All of the hurt was brought on by those she would have given everything to. People are exhaustive and it just wasn’t worth the effort anymore. If the past 22 years had taught her anything, it was that. 

So Jamie kept herself to herself, while the other women filled the room with chatter and laughter. She stayed quiet, and busied herself by fidgeting with a loose thread on the cuff of her sleeve while she waited for whatever middle aged, washed up perv they’d hired to teach a load of prisoners how to count past 10. 

//

Dani Clayton was many things, but disorganised was not one of them. 

Dani was never late. Her mornings usually followed the same pattern of events, and she was always prepared. She planned her outfits for the next day before she went to bed. She laid her shoes out by the door and her coat was always hanging above them on the metal hook she’d clumsily hammered into the cream wall of the hallway. She woke up, made herself some breakfast and drank her coffee. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got dressed. She would usually pull her hair back into a neat ponytail or twist it into a plait and that was it. She’d be ready to go. 

This morning, however, was a disaster. She wasn’t sure if it was the first day jitters, or just the universe fucking her over, but either way – disaster. Her alarm clock must have ran out of battery, because for some reason It didn’t go off like it was supposed to at 7:30am. Instead she woke at 8:15, to the sound of someone knocking at her door. Dani’s eyes flew open, and her stomach instantly dropped as a feeling of dread began to bubble. She pulled back the duvet and threw on the clothes she had laid out on the chair beside her bed, taking a second to thank herself for her preparation skills, before half-running to the front door and pulling it open to reveal Owen, dressed in his work uniform with a paper bag in his hand that smelt like some sort of breakfast food. 

Owen looks his neighbour up and down cautiously, before stepping into the apartment and depositing the bag onto the side table. ‘Late?’ He asks, grinning in amusement. 

Dani feels her cheeks heat up in embarrassment as she heads toward the bathroom. ‘My alarm.. i-it didn’t go off, I’m not- I’m never late.’ She stammers desperately. She felt like the worst person alive. Owen had put a good word in for her and here she was screwing it up before she’d even started. Her neighbour worked as a chef at the prison, and when he heard they were looking to hire a teacher, he had turned up at her door with the application form and a plate of lasagna he’d made. Owen was her only friend here, really. Well, him and his wife, Hannah, they’d introduced themselves on her first night in England, and invited her over for a bottle of wine. Dani had accepted, grateful for what she’d come to understand as ‘good old English hospitality.’ 

Owen holds up his hands in defence. ‘Alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist.’ He smirks, ‘if you’ve remembered to put them on, that is.’ He adds, smiling to himself knowingly. He can practically feel her eyes rolling. 

Owen plonks himself down onto the sofa, and after a minute he hears Dani’s voice from the bathroom. Her words are muffled with toothpaste foam, and he chuckles. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?’ He laughs. ‘You know in England we-‘

Dani spits out her toothpaste and cuts him off. ‘I said, what’s in the bag?’ She repeats herself as she emerges from the bathroom. ‘I really am, so sorry for this… just let me grab my coat, and-‘

Owen stands, and raises a hand to stop her. ‘It’s fine, Dani, really. I was a bit early anyway, its no worries, honestly.’ He smiles to emphasise his words and Dani takes a breath, nodding.

‘Right.’ She smiles back. ‘Thanks, Owen.’

Owen waves her off, grabbing the paper bag and holding it up. ‘Pancakes, we had some leftover from breakfast.’ He explains as Dani pulls her coat on, throws her backpack over her shoulder and pulls a beanie over her head in an attempt to cover her untamed blonde hair. She slips on her shoes and turns to face her neighbour. 

‘You,’ she begins, taking the package as he holds it out to her. ‘Are a life saver.’ 

‘That’s the power of pancakes.’ He winks. Dani shakes her head as she pulls open the door and they make their way out of the apartment.

//

They walk into the building together. Owen had insisted on accompanying her from the main gate to the door of her classroom and he wouldn’t even entertain her protests. ‘Prisons can be scary places.’ He says as the round the final corner. She just nods, grateful that she wasn’t alone, the building was like a maze, and her sense of direction was never very reliable. 

They carry on down the corridor until Dani points to a closed door with a large man standing outside it. His lips make a straight line and his eyes barely move as they come towards him. ‘This is it, I think.’ She says, slowing to a stop outside the room. She smiles at the guard, but the officer barely acknowledges her at all. 

Owen nods, and places a hand on her shoulder. ‘Looks like this is where I leave you, then.’ He smiles, and Dani feels her stomach roll over in an excited somersault. She was nervous, but she was good at her job and she knew that. Surely it couldn’t be much worse than a room of 4th graders running her ragged. ‘Good luck, Miss Clayton.’ Owen adds, before turning on his heel and making his exit. 

Once he’s out of sight, Dani turns to the officer at the door and reaches out a hand to greet him. ‘I’m Dani Clayton, is this the room for the female GCSE program?’ He doesn’t even look down at her outstretched hand, and after a second she drops it to her side awkwardly. The guard nods and steps aside, pulling the door open so she can enter the classroom. Dani glances around the room briefly, scanning the bleak white walls and the women sitting at plastic desks. She can only see their backs, but they are dressed identically, most of them in their standard grey prison uniforms and a few with hoodies or sweaters over the top. She tells herself that she’s got this, though she can feel her stomach clenching in opposition. ‘You’ve got this.’ She whispers aloud, as if to persuade her own nerves to cooperate, then she takes a final breath of self assurance, and steps inside. 

The other women don’t even seem to notice anyone has entered the room, caught up in the rare opportunity to communicate without the constraints of handcuffs, or locked doors. Jamie doesn’t look up, her eyes remain fixed on her hands as they fidget in her lap. Shes thinking about the carnations she’d planted in the gardens last month, they’d be blooming by early May, and she hoped she’d get to see them before she was released. Her thoughts are cut off, however, at the sound of her name being called from the front of the classroom. She’s a little taken aback by the gentleness in it. It’s the kind of voice that can make you smile with a single word, and it’s not British, either.Jamie’s intrigue forces her to lift her head, and looks up to the source of the voice. 

She’s met with blue. That’s the first thing she notices, a delicate kind of ocean blue that feels familiar, that makes Jamie feel like they’d already met, somewhere in another time, perhaps. She’s surprised, though, when she looks deeper. She’s searching for a hint of judgement and she knows how to find it, no matter how well its hidden. Yet, this time, she can’t detect even the slightest bit. The woman is looking back at her, her gaze as as intricate as Jamie’s, and it seems she’s searching for something too, although Jamie isn’t sure what. 

‘Here.’ She responds, curling the corner of her lip upwards a little. She swears she catches a flourish of pink in the blonde’s cheeks before she calls the next name in the register. 

Jamie’s interested now, any thoughts of carnations shelved in the back of her mind to make room for the blonde American woman standing before her. 

‘Okay.’ Dani starts, once the register is completed. She stands up from her desk and smooths out the creases in the black pencil skirt shes wearing. It’s paired with a dark blue silk blouse, and Jamie notices one of the buttons is undone. ‘My name’s Dani Clayton and I’m going to be your teacher for the duration of the course…’ she pauses, runs a hand through the hair that’s flopped messily into her face. Shes looking anywhere but the direction of the desk in the back left corner, because for some reason the woman sitting there makes her heart skip a little and now is not the time for her to start to analyse that. She pushes past the thought. She has a job to do. ‘Today’s session is just about getting to know you guys, and your capabilities…’ she pulls a pile of papers from her backpack, fumbling with the zip and hoping no one had noticed. Of course, Jamie did, and she smiled to herself. Dani holds up a sheet from the top of the pile. ‘These are just some questionnaires. Just a way for me to find out a little about you all.’ She begins to make her way along the rows of women, handing each one a questionnaire and a pencil to fill it in with. 

As she approaches the back row, there’s only one inmate left without a questionnaire, and Dani walks up to her, composed, eyes averted. She places the sheet of paper in front of Jamie, and picks up a pencil from the packet in her other hand. Everything is going great, until her hands betray her and she fumbles with the pencil and to her dismay, drops it onto the tiled floor. Jamie is watching her, following her movements the whole time with her lips pressed together and a slight tilt to her head. When the pencil hits the floor she moves to grabs it, but Dani beasts her to it and bends down to pick it up. When her head emerges above the desk once more, Jamie can’t help but smirk at the redness in her face. She knows she isn’t making it up this time. 

Dani straightens, and runs a hand through her hair once more and holds out the pencil she has just retrieved. Jamie meets her eyes, chasing them for a second before Dani gives in to her gaze. ‘Thanks.’ She says, her voice low and steady as she takes the object from Dani’s hand. Their fingers brush against each other as they make contact, and Dani can feel the phantom touch travel all the way up her arm, and into her chest. Her cheeks feel hot, and she breaks the eye contact in a desperate attempt to recollect herself. She can see Jamie smirking in the corner of her eye, and she bites her lip before making a move to leave. ‘Miss Clayton.’ Jamie interrupts the movement, catching Dani off guard. Jamie’s eyes are treetop green, and there’s so much behind them that Dani almost loses herself trying to find what she’s looking for. There’s a few seconds of silence before Jamie shifts forward in her seat and rests her elbows on the desk. ‘You missed a button.’ 

//

Dani is startled out of her thoughts at the classroom door swinging open. She looks up to see Owen standing in the doorway grinning. ‘Evening, Miss Clayton.’ He bows playfully. Dani smiles back at him before turning to the clock above her head. She hadn’t realised so much time had passed. She glanced back at the questionnaire in front of her. It was only fourth in the pile, and yet she was still staring at it. Jamie’s name was written at the top, along with her age. Under the section titled ‘What I would like to achieve on this course,’ the words ‘prove them wrong.’ Were scrawled out in block capitals. She’d doodled some sort of flower at the side of the page, Dani didn’t know what kind it was, but the detail of the drawing was beautiful nonetheless. She traces the petals with her finger. ‘You ready to go?’ Owen asks, snapping her out of her thoughts once more. She stands quickly, shoving the questionnaires into her backpack and grabbing her coat from the back of her seat. 

‘Right, sorry.’ She responds with a smile, trying to ignore the overpowering ache to know more. 

Owen holds open the door as they leave the room, and they make their way back to his car. Owen asks how her day went, and Dani’s smile grows. She tells him that everything went okay, and that she thinks that maybe she can make a real difference here, even if that difference is in just one or two of the students. Owen unlocks his car and pulls the door open for Dani, before jogging around to the driver’s side and starting the engine. 

‘Do you know anything about her?’ Dani asks after a few minutes, breaking the silence. She’s been flicking through the files she’d been given of the 15 inmates in her class, and she’d been staring at this particular profile for most of the car ride home. 

Owen glances at the paper she’s holding and smiles. ‘Jamie? Yeah, she works in the gardens, usually brings me the fruit and veg they grow for the meals.’ He explains, Dani’s eyes are fixed on the mugshot at the top of the file. A black and white image of the woman she had seen earlier that day, her eyes tired, but emotionless. Her face is bleak, but she hides her emotions in her eyes. Dani studies them for a second before her own eyes move to the bold text at the top of the page.

Jamie Louise Taylor, 25/11/1960. 16392-071.

‘It says she’s in for drug possession with intent to distribute.’ Dani states, more than asks. She was unsure of how someone with so much feeling could end up where Jamie had. Selling drugs? She just couldn’t see it. 

‘Yeah.’ Owen sighs. ‘She’s one of the good ones. Her heart’s in the right place but that’s what gets her into trouble. She took the wrap for something she didn’t do, apparently, and now she’s paying for it. I often sneak her an extra slice of pie when there’s some to spare.’ 

Dani tilts her head in thought. She feels a warmth in her stomach at the thought of the real reason for Jamie’s arrest. It all seems to make some sense now, but she can’t help buts wonder what would make someone take the fall for something that would land them in prison for over a year. This remained a mystery to Dani, as did her affection for a woman she had barely said 2 words to. Something about Jamie just felt so right. It was as though she just knew that they were meant to find each other, as though an invisible tether had strung them together, and the ends of the rope had finally connected.


	2. long division

‘Another glass, poppet?’ Hannah asks, holding up the half empty bottle of red wine.

Dani nods. ‘Please?’ she smiles back in response.

Hannah takes a clean glass from the kitchen cabinet and places it down on the counter before popping the lid off the top of the bottle and distributing the liquid equally into both glasses. 

On their drive home Owen had invited Dani over for dinner, he was preparing one of his homemade casserole dishes. Dani had initially dismissed him, waving him off because he didn’t need an extra person to cook for after a long day of doing just that for hundreds of convicts. Owen, however had insisted, and Dani had caved. Besides, Owen’s cooking was a significant improvement from the microwaveable mac and cheese meal that was waiting for her at the back of her refrigerator at home. Of course, the food was incredible and after helping Hannah with the washing up, the two of them had opted for a trashy romcom and a bottle of red to celebrate Dani’s first day. 

Hannah makes her way back over to the couch and hands Dani the newly filled wineglass and the two women get comfortable. Hannah begins flicking through the channels, pausing every so often when she sees something that might be appealing. Dani is trying to focus on the screen, nodding when Hannah complains that there’s nothing but blooming sport on the telly these days. But no matter how many times she attempts to push away the image, she just cant get it out of her head. That smirk, and the twitch of her eyebrow. What’s really getting her though, the thing that really makes her heart roll over in her chest, is her eyes. She thinks about their depth, and how she would give anything to dive right into it. She wants – needs – to know more, to know her. Dani grapples with the idea of her, wrapping it around her and clinging to its edges. 

‘Are you alright, love?’ Dani jumps, suddenly aware of reality once more. Hannah is looking at her with an eyebrow raised in concern. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ 

Dani shakes her head, an attempt to shift Jamie’s face from her mind. She knew that the only ghosts she was facing were her own – Edmund was just one of them, and he had her by the throat. For her whole life she had pushed her own feelings aside, just to please others, for her mom, for Judy, for him. All this time she’d had her true emotions locked away in a dark closet in the back corner of her mind and that’s where they stayed, and yet now they were spilling out, tumbling over each other as they fell and leaving their mark on every surface they came into contact with. She didn’t understand how one look could unravel every rope she had ever tied around herself, and that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. ‘I’m sorry.’ She responds, hesitant to continue. Hannah sits forward and places her glass on the coffee table, she turns to face Dani. 

‘Come on, out with it.’ She presses, sensing Dani’s need to vent. ‘A problem shared is a problem halved, and what not.’ 

Dani’s still unsure, but Hannah has one of those faces that just make you feel safe. She sighs. ‘I was engaged, before I came here.’ She pauses to take a sip of her wine, before placing it on the table next to Hannah’s. ‘To a man.’

‘You know, I seem to have that same problem.’ Hannah deadpans, nodding in the direction of the armchair where Owen was sleeping, head tilted back against the cushion. Dani scoffs, grateful for Hannah lightening the mood, giving her a second to take a breath. ‘He was… he was great, y’know? He treated me… right, and we were – he was happy.’ She corrects herself, stumbling over the point shes trying to make. ‘He was happy, but i-I was just… there. Everyday, we were living our lives, and I was aware of that, but it was like, I couldn’t feel it all the way.’ She glances at Hannah, for some sort of reassurance, and the woman nods in response, giving her the nudge she needs to go on. ‘I knew I liked girls, I’ve always known.’ She swipes a tear from her cheek before it even has chance to fall, she feels the crack in her voice and she hates herself for it. ‘I just didn’t let myself accept it, for so long…’ she trails off. 

Hannah places a hand on her arm, and gives it a small squeeze. ‘Sweetheart, you should never have to hide who you are.’ She pauses, letting Dani collect herself a little. ‘Men are nothing but trouble anyway,’ she looks over at her husband, then back at Dani. ‘For example…’

Dani laughs, she feels lighter now, like she could breathe a little easier. The chuckling fades out and she takes a steadying breath. ‘Nah, he’s no trouble.’ She says, half serious. The corners of her mouth are still turned upward. ‘He’s great. You both are.’ There’s sincerity in her voice despite the jokes, and Hannah nods in response. 

‘There’s really no need for thanks, It’s what we’re here for.’ She leans forward once more to retrieve her drink from the table and takes a sip before continuing. ‘Right, what are we thinking then?’ she asks, returning her attention to the TV remote. ‘How about Dirty Dancing?’

//

Jamie can’t sleep. She’d tried everything Tamara had taught her in therapy, but her thoughts were still bubbling away. She blames that pretty teacher from this morning, catching her off guard and making her feel something other than boredom and frustration. She flopped onto her back, throwing an arm behind her head and looking at the picture she had stuck on the bottom of the bunk above her. A moonflower. Jamie loved moonflowers. She loved them because they had a pretty name, and because of how rare they were, but mostly because of their mortality. They knew they were going to die, and yet for all the time they were alive, they were so, so beautiful. When the plants died the next morning, that was it, their time was up and she’d plant a new one next year. Exhaustive effort, very little to show for it. That’s how people felt to her. Jamie traces the petals with her finger, remembering the ones she’d drawn at the side of her paper earlier today. One of the questions on the paper had asked her to describe herself in a few words, and Jamie had left that box blank, but she thought maybe there was some sort of answer in the moonflower she’d sketched out between sneaking glances at Dani from her desk. 

She drops her arm across her stomach, kicking herself for letting her mind runaway with itself. She couldn’t keep up with it tonight. She knows nothing will come of whatever is going on with the teacher, she’s banged up, and Dani’s living her life out there, but there’s something about the lack of judgement in her face when she looks at her, that she’s taken in by. There’s something mesmerising about it, and Jamie knows that anything worth thinking about is hard to come by in here. It’s nice to have something besides the usual; food, plants, survival. This was different, and that in itself was intriguing. 

At some point she must have drifted out of it, because the next thing she knew, the breakfast alarm was ringing. She jumps awake as the whitewash lights flicker three times before going on. It’s Friday, so she’s got a nice long day of doing nothing ahead of her. She hates that, despises it. That’s the real torture of being locked up like a caged animal, you start to feel like one. Jamie’s never liked staying still for long, she liked to be kept busy, her mind occupied for as much of the day as possible. It was easier that way. Outside she had that, and when she didn’t she’d numb it with alcohol, or coke, any pill she could get her hands on, really. In here she was forced to sit confront her own demons, either that or stare at a wall and go mental. 

Jamie stands and pulls on her sweater, the same one she had on yesterday, and the day before that. The loose string has lengthened and she twists it around her finger as she makes her way to the canteen. Mealtimes was one of her least favourite parts of the day, women running riot for an extra slice of cheese, they’re treated like vultures so they act like them. Jamie doesn’t do violence, prefers to cut with words and always has. She knows that shit can hurt more than any whack she’d receive in return. The canteen was always crowded, but she usually hung back til last. Owen wouldn’t have her go hungry, she knows he likes her, and speaking to him provides some of the only enjoyable conversation she gets these days. She likes him, too, though she’d never admit it. He knows anyway. He was the one who told her to sign up for the GCSE classes in the first place. 

Shes approaching him, there’s no one behind her so she slows down. He smiles. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’ 

‘I’m in prison, what’s your excuse?’ she smirks back with a wink. 

Owen ducks below the counter and retrieves a plate of the best stuff he’d put aside for Jamie, handing it over to her. ‘Hey, less of that, I’m the one who feeds you, you know.’ Jamie rolls her eyes and accepts the plate of food, checking briefly over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. No one’s usually looking at her anyway, if you try hard enough to fade into the background you start to do just that.

She looks back at him. ‘Thank you.’ Her voice is sincere now.

‘Thank you for those gorgeous grapes from the garden.’ He throws her one over the counter, she catches it with one hand and pops it into her mouth. ‘It’s the least I can do.’ He adds. ‘How was the first day of school, then?’ 

Jamie pulls a face. ‘It’s not really school, is it?’ She comments.

‘Well what is it then?’

She shrugs, giving in to his questioning. ‘It was alright. Teacher’s nice, and American. Perhaps a bit too pretty, though.’ She pauses, he shakes his head at her disapprovingly. ‘Do you think shes pretty, Owen?’ She adds mockingly, her eyes sparkling in amusement. Shes grinning. Owen’s caught off guard. ‘You can’t answer!’ she points at him, laughing.

Owen holds up his hands. ‘I only have eyes for Hannah.’ He says firmly, there’s humour in his voice but truth, too. Jamie likes how happy he looks when he talks about his wife, it gives her hope that sometimes people don’t end up on their own. They’re the lucky ones, and in terms of luck she was the number 13. 

‘I thought when you said you recommended someone, it was gunna be some old bald prick.’ 

‘Who do you think I associate with?’ He pretends to be offended, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘Now get going before you get me in trouble.’ He says jokingly, but they had to avoid spectators, and Jamie nods goodbye as she turns to find an empty seat. Before she’s out of earshot, though Owen calls her name. She turns, eyebrow raised in curiosity. ‘I’ve heard you’re a bit of a teacher’s pet.’ 

//

Jamie finds a seat on a table with three other women sat at it. She knows they deal, and that they’re shit starters, but there’s nowhere else to sit, so she places her tray down in on the table and pulls the chair out. ‘That’s Kayla’s seat.’ One of them states. She’s telling her to move, but Jamie keeps her head down and doesn’t engage. She sits, and the girl on the chair next to her shoves her, hard.

‘What was that for?’ Jamie shoots back. She was all for staying out of trouble, but she wasn’t going to be treated like shit either. 

‘She said, that’s Kayla’s seat.’ The girl repeats her mate’s words slowly, sounding out the syllables like they were talking to a toddler. ‘So get out of it.’

‘Funny, I was sure it was empty when I sat down.’ She responds. Her voice is calm, level. She knows the right buttons to press, and that’s usually her problem. The girl beside her shoves Jamie again, and a guard sees it before Jamie can even react. He makes an example of the perpetrator, Jamie’s just thankful he didn’t choose her instead. She’s quite pleased with herself as she watches the man escort the girl out of the canteen. 

//

Dani’s at the front of the classroom early on Monday, determined to prove a point to Owen, she knocks on his door five minutes early, bag packed, hair plaited neatly down her back. He congratulates her on learning how to tell the time and follows her out to the car. 

As they drive Dani rests her head against the window. Her eyes droop a little and her head jerks up, shocking herself into a more alert state. Owen glances at her. ‘Has your early morning got the best of you already?’ He asks, his usual joking tone is present but he’s asking genuinely. 

Dani nods. ‘Didn’t sleep well.’ She answers vaguely. 

Owen leaves it at that, he knows when and when not to push a conversation and for some reason, Dani doesn’t feel like talking right now. He turns the volume dial on the radio and settles on the first station he finds, letting the music fill the silence the rest of the way to work.

When they get there, Owen walks Dani to her classroom again before making his way to the kitchen to begin lunch prep. Dani waves him off. This time she doesn’t stop to greet the officer at the door, bypasses him and enters the room. The students haven’t arrived yet, so she she takes some papers out of her backpack and begins to sort through them. Her mind keeps wandering, dragging her thoughts back to Jamie. She was excited to see her. Why was she so excited? She barely knew anything about this woman and yet she felt butterflies in her stomach at the thought of seeing her face. She settles for pretending she doesn’t realise how gay that is. Dani shuffles through her plans for the lesson, glancing at them for a last reference. The clock’s a bit fast but she knows the women will be arriving soon, so she scrawls the word ‘long division’ across the blackboard and takes a seat at her desk. 

When the door opens she looks up, stands and smiles. She’s watching them file in, pretending shes not looking for her. She is of course, and Jamie knows it. She’s waiting with a smirk and a quirked eyebrow for the second their eyes meet. Dani cant hide the redness in her cheeks, and she turns around, pretending to sort through her notes again. As the hustle settles and the girls are seated, Dani hands out sheets of paper, pencils and plastic rulers to each of her pupils. When she reaches Jamie, Dani feels her heart rate rise, she’s trying to suppress a smile, but she’s not doing a great job of it. 

‘Morning, Miss C.’ Jamie grins, her head’s tilted again and her arms are folded across her chest as she sits back in her chair. Her hair is tied up in a messy ponytail, with half the curls falling out of place around her face. Her eyes are bright, sparkling with something that Dani had never seen before. Jamie’s comment was casual, simple, yet Dani was overthinking every movement that came with it. 

‘Good morning, Jamie.’ She responds, her voice hitches in the middle and she curses herself for being the most humiliating person alive. For some reason, Jamie’s opinion mattered to her.

While she looks cool on the outside, Jamie’s heart swells at her teacher remembering her by name. The inmates usually ca her Taylor when they do speak to her, and the guards don’t even extend that curtesy. Just the fact that Dani remembered her made her feel a little more human, just as her conversations with Owen did most days. She’s grateful for that, it keeps her sane. 

Dani has been explaining the art of division for about five minutes, now. Jamie knows how to do it, but she still hangs on every word. She’s listening to the shape of the words because when this woman speaks, people listen. She barely has to say a word to get he class’ attention, in all their rowdiness. Jamie thinks its probably because Dani speaks to them like real people, not just numbers on a list. She respects them, they like that. Jamie does, too.

She’s writing down the answer to the fourth question when the lead of her pencil snaps mid 45. She considers what to do for a moment, before deciding on raising her hand. That was how you got a teacher’s attention, wasn’t it? Do they even do that in America? She asks herself. This could be embarrassing, but Dani’s clocked her now, anyway.

She stands, clears her throat. ‘Jamie?’ She says, avoiding eye contact for her own sanity. 

Jamie ignores that. ‘Do you have a spare pencil?’ She’s holding it up to illustrate her question, and Dani doesn’t know why it takes her so long to process a simple sentence. She glances around her, looking for a spare. She should’ve packed spares. Dani was sure that there was other ways for her to handle this, but something inside her made her get up from her desk and make her way to the back left corner of the room. She holds out her own biro, offering it to Jamie. Jamie cocks a eyebrow. ‘We’re not allowed pens.’ She states, ‘very dangerous instruments, y’know.’ 

Jamie’s biting her lip, and Dani’s eyes are drawn to it. She pushes down the image of it, of leaning in, brushing their lips together. Her tone is playful, and for some reason that makes the idea of kissing her right on the spot even more appealing. She knows she can’t, she’s a professional. She has a job to do, a class to teach. Dani’s arm is still extended toward Jamie. ‘I’m pretty sure it’ll be in safe hands.’ She smiles. She’s joking, but there’s a seriousness behind her eyes. ‘Take it.’ She pushes, seeing Jamie’s hesitation. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to keep an extra special eye on you. We wouldn’t want any accidents, would we?’ Dani doesn’t know what gave her the confidence to say that, or what pushed her to add a subtle wink to punctuate it, but Jamie’s smile grows a little. She takes the pen from Dani, her movements slow. Dani notes how gentle she is, the carefulness in her movements, her voice, her eyes. It’s as though she’s scared to break whatever she’s engaging wit. 

For a moment, the two women are face to face, each of them lost in the other’s expression. It’s only been a few seconds, but Dani feels like hours might’ve passed when her gaze is finally torn away by another inmate calling her name. Dani turns, and the moment passes just like that, like all moments do. 

Jamie sighs to herself, disappointed to have been interrupted. She could’ve sat in that stare forever, held in place by the softness radiating from every part of Dani. She berates herself, she had to stop thinking like this, like there’s something… anything between them. No one wants the local trash, especially not people who look like that, good people with good hearts and gentle touches. She glances down at the black biro in her hand and starts to doodle across the page. 

The rest of the lesson drags on, and when they’re called to leave, Jamie does as she’s told. Shes at the back of the line, following the rest of the women back to the cell blocks, but as she rounds the first corner and shoves her hands into her trousers pockets, her fingers come into contact with something hard. She mutters a curse under her breath, realising what she’d done. She could’ve kept hold of the pen, kept it hidden under her mattress and given it back on Wednesday, but instead she turns, making sure the officer is preoccupied, and sneaks back along the corridor toward the classroom.


	3. a moment

When her classroom door swings open again, Dani presumes its Owen, coming to check up on her during a break or even an officer who had left something behind when he’d left the room. So, understandably, the last thing she expects when she lifts her head from the pile of division sums she’s decided to get a head start on, is Jamie, leaning against the doorframe with her hands still in her pockets and that godforsaken smile, so genuine that it reaches her eyes, too. It flickers in the green of her irises and hits Dani right in the centre of her chest. There’s silence for a moment, both of them still in the other’s presence. 

Dani goes to speak, but her words are tangled around each other in her throat and her mouth hangs open for a moment before she closes it again, giving up on the attempt. Jamie only smirks at this, enjoying herself a little too much. She steps forward and pulls her hands out of her pockets. In one of them she holds up the pen Dani had given her earlier. ‘Forgot to give this back to you.’ She starts, voice steady. She walks the rest of the way across the classroom so shes standing on the opposite side of Dani’s desk, and holds out it out. ‘Wouldn’t want any accidents, would we?’ She repeats Dani’s words, raising her eyebrow. 

Dani reaches out and takes the biro from Jamie’s hand. All of Jamie’s movements feel smooth, but hers are clumsy, shaky. 

After a few seconds, Dani clears her throat. She’s determined not to fuck this up, to remain professional and collected. ‘That- I- that was a joke…’ she looks down because she can feel her face heating up and she just knows that Jamie is grinning at the colour in her cheeks. ‘I didn’t actually think you’d stab someone-‘

Jamie puts her hands up to stop her. ‘I know.’ She says genuinely, and Dani relaxes a little, her shoulders dropping as the tension in her body fades. Jamie puts her hands back in her pockets and looks at the floor. Her expression is more serious, now. ‘I know I’m a scruffy convict and whatever, but I’m not… like that.’ She finishes, finding the confidence to look back up. Dan’s looking back at her, studying her face intently, carefully moving from her eyes to her nose, following the curl of her lip and watching how her teeth dig into it. Jamie would usually feel uncomfortable, but instead she just feels warm. She allows the silence to reign for a minute, before she clears her throat. ‘You’re doing great, you know.’

Dani cocks her head. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Most of these girls couldn’t give a shit about maths or English. They don’t think they’ve got it in them to get an education, but with you, they listen.’ She pauses, takes another step forward. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I’m sure they are, too.’ 

Dani smiles at that. She’s unsure if its the validation in general, or the fact that it came from Jamie, but she feels a sense of pride well up in her stomach. With that pride comes the urge, the one she’d tried so hard to suppress. She doesn’t even realise shes doing it, but before she knows it she’s leaning forward across the desk, so close that she can feel Jamie’s breath, hot against her lips, and Jamie’s hands move from her pockets towards Dani’s neck. They’re melting into each other, and it feels like everything around them has fallen away. 

They’re cut off by a blaring alarm, one that Jamie knows all too well. A voice overhead calls all prisoners to their bunks for a cell check, and that’s it. 

Jamie lets out a breath. It comes easy, gently, and their foreheads fall against each other for a moment. ‘I am so sorry.’ Jamie starts, finally making a move to pull away. Dani is silent, she’s unable to form a coherent sentence and she doesn’t want to embarrass herself by trying. Jamie averts her eyes, fixing them on the floor tiles beneath her feet. She clears her throat once more, a weak attempt to fill the silence. ‘That’s my cue.’ She smiles, but its not her usual toothy grin, its forced, painted on to alleviate the tension still dominating the room. ‘I best be off.’ She finishes. She can’t bring herself to look back into Dani’s eyes. She hears the other woman call her name in some strangled attempt to pull her back, to extend that moment for just a second. ‘Another day, maybe, another time, maybe.’ And then she’s gone, she disappears around the corner, the door clicking shut behind her, and leaving Dani standing alone with her eyes wide and unmoving.

//

For most of the drive home, Dani’s silent. Shes trying to make sense of something, anything, but all those thoughts that had spilled out the other day were now running riot in her head, adamant on leaving as much mess as possible as they go. She can still feel Jamie’s hand, pressed against her cheek, feel the sparks that it left in its wake. She remembers the feeling of absence, the way it felt when Jamie turned away, like a blanket being pulled off in winter. She’s mad at herself for not saying anything, for not reassuring her or telling her how she feels. Dani prides herself on bravery, on defeating the odds. She’s a lot braver than people think, yet today she hadn’t even been brave enough to communicate basic emotions. 

‘Was everything alright with the students?’ Owen knows something is up, and he respects Dani enough to know when and when not to push, but he’s pretty sure Dani has never been silent for this long in her life, and its quite discomforting. 

Dani nods. ‘Yeah, yeah, everything’s… it was fine. I’m fine.’ She stutters out. She trusts Owen, but telling him that she’s hopelessly crushing on an inmate after 2 days of knowing her, might not be the greatest idea. She reminds herself that Owen is the reason she has this job, and she seems to be doing everything in her power to screw it up for herself. She was coming to terms with the fact that she’d been lying to herself for the past 25 years, and that she’d never be the daughter-in-law Judy had wanted her to be, but what she cant wrap her head around is why the first woman she allows herself to feel something for, is a prisoner, a prisoner she’s meant to teach. Jamie’s locked in a cell, she’s isolated and alone and Dani hates herself for taking advantage of her like that. 

Owen nods. ‘Very convincing.’ He says flatly, but he gives her a reassuring smile. ‘None of the inmates are giving you grief, are they?’ 

Dani shakes her head quickly. ‘No, no of course not.’ She confirms. ‘They’re fine.’ She shoves her thumb between her teeth and turns so she’s looking away from Owen, eyes following the houses they’re passing. For some reason this conversation is easier when she’s not looking at him. ‘I just, it’s just one of them…’ she trails off, her thoughts shifting again to the feel of Jamie’s forehead pressed against hers. She’d give anything to go back to that, to feel as content as she did in that moment. ‘I just cant stop thinking about her.’ 

‘Jamie.’ Owen states, catching her off guard. She turns back to face him, her expression like a deer caught in the headlights. Had she been that obvious? Owen was good at reading people, at knowing what they kept hidden, but he also knew that if something was hidden, it was for a reason. ‘He sees the panic in her face. ‘Hey, I don’t blame you, Jamie’s great.’ His tone is lighthearted, and Dani’s just grateful he’s so easy going. She doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve such good friends. 

She lets out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. ‘She is.’ She pauses. ‘But shes also my student… and, you know, in prison.’

Owen scoffs. ‘She’s not going to be sitting her GCSE English exam for the rest of her life, Dani.’ She’s not sure if he’s joking or not, but his eyebrows wiggle and he smiles. 

Dani turns his words over in her mind. He’s right, but Dani’s not even sure that Jamie will ever even speak to her again after what happened today. Dani wouldn’t blame her if she never came to class again. She decides against disclosing the moment the two had shared. It’s something she wants to keep for herself, something that only she and Jamie could lose themselves in, if they wanted to. She tries to convince herself that it didn’t mean anything to Jamie anyway, tells herself that someone so hot, so endearing, so confident, would have girls lining up for her, prison or not. She knows it’s just a desperate grasp for some kind of sanity, an excuse for her to fall back on. Dani returns to her previous position, choosing to focus on the cars in the opposite lane as they flash past the window, 

The car ride seems to go on for an eternity, but when they finally arrive at the apartment Owen waves her goodbye and leaves her be. He wants to give her time, to think, to run over her options, and he trusts that if she needs to talk more she’ll make the first move. 

Dani puts on a film, a boring black and white movie that was showing on channel 1. She’s not paying much attention, barely even recalls what the plot is centred on, but its something to fill the silence, background noise that does nothing to quiet her thoughts. 

Try as she might, though, Dani can’t keep her eyes off the phone hanging silent on the wall. She’s dragged back to it no matter how hard she tries, and after half an hour of ignoring the TV, she caves. 

//

Jamie doesn’t get phone calls. She hasn’t spoken to either of her parents since she got taken into care. Denny wanted nothing to do with her, blamed her for what her mother did because, well, mum wasn’t around, and Jamie was the best substitute he could find. She checked in with Mikey, but the toddler she found crying alone in his crib all those years ago was 16 now. He had his own life. Jamie knew that even if she wanted to, it’d be near impossible to get in contact with him. He was probably still bouncing around foster homes. He was better off without her anyway. She failed him the second she let them get split up. 

So when an officer opens her cell door and tells her someone’s requested her ID number for a call, she’s a little taken aback. She combs through the options. It could be Tina, but she hasn’t even tried to make contact with Jamie since that night, when the police raided the apartment and found Tina’s whole stash. Jamie hadn’t even known it was there until they were both in handcuffs and she was begging them to let her girlfriend go, insisting that the drugs were hers, not Tina’s. Even if it is her, Jamie wants nothing to do with her. She’s tortured herself enough over her ex and there’s no chance in hell she’s ever giving her that kind of power again. Jamie considers Mikey, or even Denny, wanting money or asking her to get them off the hook for something, but neither of her brothers even know she’s locked up and she can’t imagine that’s changed. As for her parents, well she didn’t even know if they were alive or dead. 

Still, Jamie follows the officer out of the cell toward the row of phones that line the wall. He points to one.at the far right and tells her that she’s got five minutes, and that he’ll be listening, so she better keep the conversation above board. 

She nods, picks up the phone and holds the receiver to her mouth. ‘Hello?’ She asks, she’s hiding the lack of surety in her voice with her usual confidence. The other end of the line is silent, but she can hear breathing. She switches the phone to her other hand and repeats herself. ‘Hello?’ ThE caller still doesn’t speak, and Jamie sighs. ‘Look, I don’t know if you’ve got the wrong number, or what, but I only have five min-‘

She’s cut off by a shaky voice, quiet, but familiar. ‘Hi.’ For once in her life, Jamie’s lost for words. She doesn’t know why her teacher is calling her, but she’s intrigued, and she doesn’t mind, she likes the idea, even. ‘It’s… it’s Miss- Dani, it’s Dani.’ 

For some reason the more she listens to Dani’s voice, the more she melts into the conversation. Her shoulders relax and she turns so that she’s leaning against the wall. ‘What can I do for you, Miss Dani.’ She hears a breathy laugh on the end of the line and she feels herself smiling. ‘Need help with the homework or something?’ She adds. She likes making Dani laugh, and shes good at it, too. 

Dani takes a breath to steady herself. ‘No, I, uh, just wanted to, make sure you were okay, y’know, after we…’ she trails off, hoping Jamie will just fill the rest in for her, but the brunette is having far too much fun for that. 

‘After we what, Miss Clayton?’ Dani doesn’t need to see Jamie’s face to know that she’s got that smug expression playing across her features. ‘We’re on a clock here, you know.’ 

Dani shakes her head, despite Jamie not being able to see the movement. She runs a hand through the waves of hair that had fallen lazily around her shoulders when she’d untied her plait. ‘There was… a moment.’ 

‘There was.’ Jamie looks at the floor, scratches her head.

Dani’s holding the phone so tightly that her knuckles are white. Shes sitting on the floor beneath it, busying her hands by twisting the chord around them. ‘There was.’ She breathes out, repeating Jamie’s statement. ‘I don’t know… I’m not sure what to do about it.’ She admits, sighing. She hates how complicated this is, and that however hard she wracks her brain, she still can’t find a solution. 

‘I dunno, Dani.’ The flirtatious tone in Jamie’s voice is all but gone, and her lips are pressed together tight. ‘I’m getting out of here in 3 months, I’ve got to focus on that, on me…’ 

‘I know.’ Dani responds. There’s so much understanding in her voice that Jamie isn’t sure what to do with herself. It might be easier if Dani was upset, or angry, but she was just… Dani. ‘I know that, and I know that the situation is… messy, but theres something here, right? There’s something between us.’ She switches her initial question into a statement, because she doesn’t need a response. They both know that Dani’s right, that there’s something, and that something is overwhelming, consuming, they’re in deep and they can’t get out from under it. 

‘I-‘ Jamie starts to speak, but shes interrupted by a male voice telling her that her time’s up. ‘I’ve got to go, I’ll see you Wednesday, yeah?’ 

Dani’s about to respond, but the male voice cuts through the line once more, it’s muffled by distance but it’s louder this time, more aggressive. Before she gets a chance to say anything, the line goes dead, and her living room is filled with silence once more. After a few seconds of processing, Dani removes the phone from her ear and stands, placing it back on the receiver. Her hand rests on the phone for a moment, before she heads to the fridge and pulls out the mac and cheese ready meal from the bottom shelf. ‘Get your shit together, Dani.’ She murmurs to herself as she places it into the microwave.

//

When they’ve ransacked her cells, checked for any kind of contraband they can get their hands on and left her shit sprawled out across the floor, Jamie finally flops onto her mattress. She picks up her book, tries to focus on the characters’ problems in place of her own, tries to lose herself in a fictional world, where there’s more to look at than the same four white walls and the tiny bit of reality that peaks through the window. She never really enjoyed reading until she had nothing else to do to take her mind off things. This time, though, she can’t concentrate. She’s re-read the same paragraph four times already, and she still hasn’t got a clue what the hell’s happening. She closes the book, swings her legs over the side of the bed and sits up, resting her elbows on her knees and rubbing small circles on her temples. 

It’s 3:30, that means her block is out for rec time, where they let the animals out of their cages for an hour to walk about or play chess, or whatever. She stands up from her bunk and pulls open her cell door. She’s hoping a change of scenery will sort her head, make things clearer, so she heads down the stairs and starts a lap of the rec area. 

As she rounds the corner, though, Jamie’s caught off guard by someone grabbing her by the arm and pulling her under the staircase. Her heart rate speeds up and she knows that if she doesn’t pick soon her body will make the decision for her. Fight, flight, freeze, which was it? She doesn’t have time to make a decision, and for some reason her body has chosen the worst of the three options. She freezes. Before she can react, she feels something solid comes into contact with her cheek. There’s a sudden, burning pain, and there’s something warm trickling down the side of her face. When her vision clears, she’s face to face with the woman who had been sat opposite her a few days earlier in the canteen. ‘You’ve got some cheek, showing your face round here.’ The woman spits. Jamie stays quiet, still stunned into silence from the blow. She can feel the ground tilting beneath her and she puts a hand against the wall to steady herself. ‘Lisa’s in the hole cause of your shit. They threw her in solitary for a week, all because a dirty little slag couldn’t show a bit of respect.’ 

Jamie’s vision is going black around the edges, and she’s unsure how much longer she’ll be able to stay standing. If she ends up sprawled out on the floor she knows they’ll all pile on, smack her about just for something to pass the time. 

Just as she’s about to lose the battle, to just give in to her body’s demands, a hand is grasping her sweater, pulling her backwards. She can see the blurred outline of another officer, pulling her attacker away from her, but she’s too out of it to process anything else.

//

Dani’s hands are tangled in her hair, moving downwards to her back as she kisses her neck. Jamie can feel herself falling into a rhythm, back and forth to the sound of Dani’s heavy breathing. She can feel every breath, sending shivers through the entirety of her body when it comes into contact with her chest. Jamie’s kissing her shoulder, makes her way down her chest at a steady pace. Shes savouring every second of it, of her body, of the delicate texture of her skin against Jamie’s. God, she’d wanted this for so long, they both had. To hold each other, to feel the other’s heartbeat as they move in time with the other. Jamie’s all the way under the covers now, head dropping to-‘

‘Fuck.’ Jamie’s eyes snap open, and as quickly as she wakes, the peace fades. She’s disappointed that the situation wasn’t real, that it was just something her unconscious had conjured up to toy with her. All the pleasure she had felt under the veil of sleep has diminished, and she’s staring up at the bottom of the bunk above her. Suddenly she’s aware of a thumping pain in her skull, like someone’s repeatedly walloping it with a sledgehammer. As she becomes more aware of her surroundings, the events that lead her here slowly slot into place. She brings her hand to her cheek, feels the stitched cut that runs across it just blow her eye. As her fingers smooth over it pain ripples through the wound.

Slowly, Jamie stands, makes her way to the small plastic mirror on the wall of her cell. It’s already starting to bruise, though she doesn’t think it’ll leave a scar. She hopes it doesn’t, she has enough of those already. Jamie sighs she’s praying that this doesn’t work against her, that her release date isn’t compromised because of it. She finds that her mind wanders to Dani. Jamie knows she’ll worry. Dani’s one of those people that care too much, no matter how hard you tried to convince her everything ‘s okay, she’ll think the worst until proven otherwise.

She glances at the clock, it’s almost 8pm, there’s no point in doing anything but going back to sleep, the sooner that happens the sooner the banging in her head will stop, too. 

So Jamie collapses back onto her bed, thankful that sleep starts to creep back in soon enough.


	4. lets get it on

Dani can’t believe this. She can’t believe that she’s sitting here like a teenager, her stomach overflowing with butterflies. This morning she hadn’t even needed her alarm clock, she’d been up since 6, like a little kid on Christmas morning. She was a half hour early to work, and she should be planning, going over her notes for today’s class, but she can’t. She can’t, because of the freaking butterflies and the minutes closing in around her. 

She’s become accustomed to watching for her, her eye trained on Jamie, watching every movement because she feels like if she looks away for even a moment, she’ll miss getting to know a piece of her.

Jamie’s at the back of the line like usual, hands shoved in her pockets as she walks casually to her seat, but today, Jamie’s smile is less of a flirtatious grin, and more of a message, an ‘I’m okay. Please don’t worry.’ Jamie knows she cant go this whole class without Dani seeing the mess she’s in, so she doesn’t bother trying to hide it. Apparently, though Jamie’s message mustn’t have been clear enough, because the second Dani’s delicate blue eyes crash into the angry, purple, blue bruise on Jamie’s cheek, the second they sweep across the butterfly stitches, they fill with concern. Any other expression is drowned out with worry, with fear. Jamie recognises those emotions well, and she mouths a quick ‘all good.’ To her teacher, giving her a thumbs up sign as she takes her seat. 

Dani struggles through a brief introduction to romantic poetry, and sets the class off on a starter activity before handing out a stack of papers. Jamie watches as Dani gets closer to her desk, studying her body language for an idea of how she’s going to react. Dani’s still got concern written across every feature, her eyebrows furrowed in worry. She places the paper on the desk in front of Jamie, and turns so that her back is facing the rest of the class. ‘Jamie…’ she starts, her voice is low, the most gentle thing Jamie’s ever heard, and its laced with sadness. ‘How-what the hell happened?’ 

She doesn’t need to elaborate on what she’s referring to, and Jamie bites her lip, contemplating her response. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’ She responds, it’s a lie, and she’s well aware that Dani knows that. Still, she’s committed to the act now. ‘I’ve survived worse.’ Jamie was always good at fronting, at putting on a brave face, waving stuff off with sarcasm or humour. She smirks, trying to lessen the tension in Dani’s face, but Dani just looks down, suddenly ashamed of her own concern, Jamie doesn’t need to be worrying about how she feels on top of whatever else is going on, she didn’t need Dani making this any harder than it already was. Jamie chases her gaze, ducking her head to catch Dani’s eye. She holds her focus for a minute, before settling it on Dani’s hand resting casually on her desk. ‘Hey.’ She says, her tone is more resolved now, level. She slowly moves her own hand so that its covering Dani’s, giving it a small squeeze to emphasise her point. ‘It’s nothing I cant handle, honest.’ She runs her thumbs over Dani’s knuckles, and the blonde feels the butterflies in her stomach migrate to her chest, wings beating frantically as they do. 

‘Who… was it someone here??’ Dani asks, a flash of panic crosses her face as her mind rolls over a thousand different possibilities. Had it been her fault? Had someone caught on to them, to whatever this was. She’s second guessing every glance in Jamie’s direction, every blush, every secret smile thrown her way. She’s always been a catastrophist, with a habit of bypassing rationality in favour of leaping right to the worst case scenario. She knows it comes from her mom, from how she blamed her for her dad leaving. She had always fallen short in her mother’s eyes. She’s constantly on guard for what she’s done wrong, for what she could’ve done better. She blames herself for Eddie’s death, and she knows that if anyone found out what really happened that night, they’d blame her, too.

Jamie shakes her head. ‘ No, no one here.’ She confirms quickly. She catches the guilt Dani attempts to stifle. ‘It’s not your fault, Dani.’ She pauses, moves her hand from where its resting on top of Dani’s and holds up her little finger. ‘Promise.’ She whispers.

Dani lets herself relax a little. Though she doesn’t know why, she trusts Jamie. She’s never trusted anyone in her life, not completely, yet with Jamie, it’s different. The feeling comes so naturally. What’s more, is that Jamie doesn’t ask for it, she doesn’t just expect Dani to trust her, she doesn’t expect anything from her. It’s something Dani struggles to comprehend, to not feel like she owes a part of herself, but to want to give it freely. Dani smiles half-heartedly. The guilt seems to have faded but the worry still burns behind her eyes. She mimics Jamie’s action, intertwines their pinkies to symbolise the truth in her thoughts. 

When she looks up, Jamie’s smiling at her, beaming with that genuine sparkle that Dani had been waiting for, that she’d searched so hard to find. She returns the expression, the corners of her mouth turning upwards unprovoked. ‘Promise.’ She repeats. 

As another moment fades around them, Dani’s called off to help another student, and Jamie’s left to analyse a Shakespearean sonnet. Dani’s struggling to keep her focus, to tear her eyes away from Jamie. She’s watching as the brunette closes her eyes for a moment, as she rests her forehead in her palm and bites back the pained expression on her face. Dani contemplates sending her back to her cell, it doesn’t seem fair to let her sit here in pain, but she feels better knowing Jamie’s here, knowing that she can keep an eye on her. She has this overwhelming urge to protect her, to keep her safe, though she knows Jamie would be far more qualified than she ever will be in that aspect. Besides, if Jamie hadn’t wanted to be here, she wouldn’t have come. 

When the class finally draws to a close, Dani waves off her students and calls Jamie to stay behind. Jamie’s hesitant, glancing at the officer by the door, and then back to Dani. The man stands stone faced, but he reluctantly agrees to come back for her after escorting the rest of the women back to their cells. 

When the last of the inmates have filed out of the classroom, the door clicks shut and they’re alone. The room is blanketed with a sudden silence, and they’re wrapped in unspoken emotions. 

Jamie’s leaning against the front of her desk, perched on the edge with her hands in her pockets and her right leg crossed over her left. Dani makes her way over to the desk in front of Jamie, falling into a similar position so that they’re face to face. ‘It was some random twat, pissed because her mate got what was coming to her.’ She answers Dani’s question before the blonde even has a chance to ask it. ‘But it’s sorted, so its all good.’ Dani doesn’t look completely convinced, and Jamie definitely isn’t. ‘It’s all about dominance in here, they make their point, and then they move on to the next drama.’ She gestures to her bruised face. ‘Just so happens, that my face is the point in question.’

Dani stays quiet, tracing the outline of the bruise with her eyes. Without realising she’s doing it, she reaches a hand out in front of her, cups the injured side of Jamie’s face and runs her thumb along the darkening swirls of colour that fuse together across her face. At the initial contact, Jamie flinches, and Dani retracts her hand. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, did I hurt you? I didn’t mean-‘

Jamie shakes her head, interrupting Dani’s panicked waffling. ‘No.’ She breathes. She takes her hands from her pockets and picks up Dani’s from where they had been clasped in her lap, rolls them over in her own. Dani’s staring down at them, at Jamie’s thumb running small circles on the back of her hand. She feels reality fall away, and just like that they’re transported. They’ve faded into a different world, a different place and time where nothing else matters but the two of them. When Dani raises her eyes from their joined hands, all she can see is green, the intricate rainforest that Jamie usually keeps behind a locked door was spilling out all over her. Dani’s eye-line moves to Jamie’s lips, and then their bodies are moving toward each other, and even if they’d had wanted to stop, this moment feels written, like every force in the universe had pulled together to witness it. There’s a beautiful inevitability to it, that to argue with it felt wrong, unnatural. 

And who are we to question fate?

Jamie’s lips brush across Dani’s, gentle at first. It’s soft, careful, it mirrors every part of Jamie’s being. Dani can feel herself melt into it, grasps Jamie by the hips. There’s a peak to the tension, a moment where Jamie places her hands on top of Dani’s, pulls back, and whispers a question, ‘are you sure?’ Dani nods. She’s sure, in fact, she’s never felt more sure of anything. She’s never wanted for something, craved it like this in her life, and Jamie’s smiling against her lips now, untangling their hands from one another and moving hers to Dani’s neck. Dani leans into the kiss, pressing her lips into Jamie’s once more as she brings her own hands to Jamie’s elbows. Dani’s lips feel warm against hers, and Jamie slides her hand under Dani’s hair. 

The minutes collapse around them, each one bringing the other’s absence closer. Jamie breaks away, but she’s still close enough to feel Dani’s breath as it sweeps across her lips. She leans in, placing a last delicate kiss on Dani’s lips. They’re motionless for a time, neither of them can bring themselves to open their eyes, to burst the bubble they’d built around themselves, but the officer will be back soon, and Jamie will be escorted out of the room, back to her cell. 

Jamie brushes a fallen piece of blonde hair behind Dani’s ear, grins at her as she lets her hand fall to her side. ‘Didn’t know that was in the job description, Miss Clayton.’ 

Dani just rolls her eyes as the sound of the doorknob turning pulls the moment apart. 

//

‘Your carriage awaits.’ Owen chimes as he holds open the passenger side door and gestures for Dani to climb into the car. Once they’re both strapped in and turning out of the staff car park, he throws her a look. Dani’s been quiet, but not the same, disconcerting kind of quiet as the other day. This quiet was peaceful, a subtle smile plays on her face, like she doesn’t even realise its there, and her posture is relaxed. 

Dani catches the expression on his face, nudges his arm playfully. ‘What?!’ She asks defensively, trying to force a frown upon her features. Her effort proves futile, though, and her smile only widens. ‘Stop that.’ She shoots, a little too quickly. She’s the worst at keeping secrets, especially when its something that makes her feel so… giddy? Dani’s always worn her emotions on her sleeve, though often unintentionally, it was something Eddie had hated about her.

Owen’s wiggling his eyebrows at her knowingly. ‘I never said a word.’ He smirks. 

Dani lets out an exasperated sigh, covering her face with both hands to hide the blush that flutters across her cheeks. ‘God, please keep it that way.’ She pleads. Owen is like a big brother to Dani, and she really didn’t want to spend the rest of this car journey talking to her big brother about the hot convict she’d just planted one on a few hours earlier. She leans forward, turns to dial on the radio up in an attempt to drown out her own humiliation, but the universe seems to have other plans because as she does so, ‘Let’s Get it On.’ by Marvin Gaye starts to play through the speaker. 

Owen can barely contain himself as he starts to sing along, all the while sneaking glances at the blonde sitting next to him, just to make sure that she’s still regretting every life decision that has lead her to this very moment. 

Dani’s had just about as much as she can take when they reach Owen’s apartment, but when Hannah invites her in she can’t say no, despite the repercussions on her own sanity. 

Luckily, though, Owen lays off on the teasing, busying himself by making three mugs of hot chocolate.

‘One for you.’ Owen over exaggerates a courtesy as he hands Dani one of the mugs of hot coco he’s just finished making. Owen prides himself on what he calls ‘the art of hot chocolate making’. ‘It’s all about the details, you see.’ He’d tell her as he sprinkles the brown chocolate powder into the bottom of the mug. He boils the water, and tops it up with some hot milk. The finishing touch, and a Sharma family secret, so he says, is grating a few blocks of Cadbury’s dairy milk and letting them melt into the liquid. When that’s done he adds the cream, piles it on and adds a flick at its peak. He drops on mini marshmallows, and sticks a flake into the top as a finishing touch. ‘And for you, m’lady.’ He repeats his previous gesture as he hands a second mug to his wife. He’s placed a rose into the cream as well as a flake. 

Hannah rolls her eyes, but she pulls him towards her and places a kiss on his cheek nonetheless. ‘Must you be so dramatic, dear?’ 

‘Indeed. I must.’ Owen responds. He turns to grab his own mug before taking the empty seat by Hannah at the table. His attention then turns back to Dani, who has now realised that there’s no chance in hell that she’s getting out of this one unscathed. ‘So…’ he starts, expectantly. ‘How was work?’

//

The dinner bell rings at 5 on the dot, just like it did every other day, but Jamie doesn’t move from where she’s sitting at the desk in her cell. She’s staying out of the way after yesterday’s incident. Opts for staying put, filling out some shitty crossword puzzle from a book that’s probably older than she is. It’s something to pass the time, although she’s only onto the third question, and her interest is already fading. She sighs as she closes the book, turns to stereo sitting beside her and switches it on. They have a system here, if you behave yourself, you’re rewarded for it, if not, you’re punished. Pretty simple concept, you’d think. Jamie had earned the stereo after around three months here, and it was often the only thing that kept her even a little bit sane. Sometimes, on the worst nights, she’d let the radio hover between stations, listen as the static filled the room. It had a strange way of calming her, of grounding her when her thoughts got too loud. 

Silence can be deafening, its an expression Jamie has come to understand this past nine months, and one she’s grown to loathe with every inch of her being. 

Jamie stops at the first station with a reasonable signal. The prison was too far outside of London to catch much signal, and what did come through was never very consistent, muffled at best, any music accompanied by the crackle of stray airwaves. When she lands on something remotely coherent, Jamie stops, turns up the sound a little as she stands from her seat, pulls off her sweater. 

As she emerges from beneath the fabric, Jamie notices something slip out of the pocket, a small piece of paper, torn from the corner of a larger piece. It drifts to the ground. She tilts her head in curiosity, thinks that maybe it’d just gotten stuck to her somehow, but when she bends over to pick it up, she can make out the outline of a drawing, ink bleeding through from the other side. She turns it over in her palm, and recognises the shape of the drawing. Jamie stares down at it, the moonflower she’d doodled on the corner of her questionnaire days earlier. Dani must’ve slipped it into the pocket of her sweater at some point. Upon further inspection, Jamie notices an added detail. Arched around the petals of the flower, Dani has written something. Her handwriting is as delicate as the rest of her, letters looped together gently to form three separate words.

You, me, us.

Jamie’s not entirely sure what that means, she’s not entirely sure what anything means at the moment, but she’s smiling, nonetheless. 

‘The state of this.’ She curses herself under her breath. She shakes her head. She’s stood in the middle of her prison cell, smiling down at a scrap of paper like a fucking idiot because despite all logic, despite her rationality, it makes Dani feel closer. 

This whole situation with Dani has changed things, and Jamie would be lying if she told herself otherwise. She has a plan. She knows what she wants, what’s waiting for her when she finally gets out of this concrete gravity well. She has a plan and she likes it that way. A boring little life, in a boring little town where she could plant things, plant anything she liked and watch what happens when you pour your love, and your nourishment into something that won’t disappoint you, or leave you, or fuck your entire life up. She’d watch her plants grow, probably get herself a little golden retriever or something. Nice and boring. Jamie hadn’t wanted to share that with anyone, or perhaps she just didn’t want to give anymore of herself to another person, but either way, her plan did not include a pretty blonde teacher with ocean blue eyes, who writers cryptic messages on the ripped off corner of a questionnaire. 

And yet, here she is. Dani Clayton, a hurricane in the form of a lesbian who can barely string a sentence together in Jamie’s presence, who’s a really, really good kisser, who makes her feel safe, makes her feel whole.. 

So now what? 

She tries to step back, approach it from another point of view. It’s something she’d learned in therapy, how to stay rational, stay objective. Tamara would probably tell her that this was a bad idea, and Jamie would probably agree, but just like that moment in Dani’s classroom, just like the feel of Dani’s lips against hers, Jamie can’t turn away. She can’t rob herself of a feeling she never thought she’d have, starve herself of the possibility that she might not end up alone. She’s irritatingly consumed by it, by the idea that something, like a moonflower, just might be worth the effort. 

Jamie’s pulled out of her thoughts at the crackle of the stereo as the DJ reads out the title of the next song. Her cell is filled with the intro to ‘Let’s Get it On’ by Marvin Gaye. She scoffs, of course, of every song ever written, THIS is the one playing. She flops back down into her seat, reopening the ancient book of crossword puzzles, deciding that, however dull it is, anything’s better than being alone with her thoughts right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, let me know how you’re liking this bc I’m trying to decide on how long I’m gonna make it overall etc. Thank you all for reading it means a lot <3 
> 
> You can also follow my Twitter, @AMELlASEVE if you like :)


	5. fresh tomatoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys.  
> This one gets pretty dark by the end, there’s a mention of death and also sexual assault, so just be wary of that!  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

Jamie loves working in the gardens, she fucking loves it. She loves every part of it. The dirt, the hard labour, even the early mornings. There’s something so peaceful about it, about 6:15am on a bitter cold Thursday morning in early February, just before Spring takes the reigns from Winter. The sky is that kind of dusky blue, the one that rests between the deep midnight black and the baby blue of the early morning. She’s freezing, even under her gloves her fingers are numb, and she’s absolutely knackered, but she has her plants, and she has her quiet, and that’s all she needs – well, needed.

She shakes that thought from her head, because if there’s one thing she’s not going to let this whole Dani situation distract her from, its her fucking plants. Her plants have never let her down, or fucked her over, or broke her heart. Her plants are consistent, so long as you give them everything they need, they grow and bloom and her job’s done. No surprises, no blonde hair or blue eyes, just a leafling, that will morph into a flower when it’s ready. 

Jamie tends to her Carnations, feeds and waters them, and checks the soil. When she’s satisfied, she moves onto the greenhouse, at least it’s warmer in there. She scans the plots, eyes drifting over numerous different vegetable and fruit plants, all in various stages of growth. ‘Tomatoes look about done.’ She calls over her shoulder. The garden supervisor nods, giving her the go ahead to pick them from their vine. He doesn’t even look up from whatever book he’s reading, but Jamie’s probably ten times more qualified than he is, anyway. She turns her attention back to the task, starts at the bottom and works her way up, plucking the fruit one by one and placing them carefully into a wooden crate. She’s pleased with this batch, in terms of size, they’re beasts, and bright red. Owen’s thank her for these.

There’s only two other inmates working this morning, one of them is Janice, she’s well into her sixties, and for as long as she’s been out here, Jamie hasn’t heard her say a single word. Still, her presence is actually quite calming, she was a part of the garden furniture, one could say. The other inmate is new, still shy and she doesn’t look as though she’ll be sticking around either. She mumbles to herself whenever she gets dirt on her knees, and Jamie can hear her going on about the cold, and how forcing prisoners to work like this is unethical, or some shit. 

She’s glad that her peers favour silence, she prefers it that way. The gardens were the only place she felt even remotely relaxed around here, and she doesn’t want some nosy prick ruining that for her, especially not today. So Jamie keeps her head down, stays focused on the task at hand. She’s got another half an hour before her shift ends, and then it’ll be straight to the kitchens with the fresh crate of tomatoes that she’ll take every ounce of credit for. 

Jamie’s drifted off into her own world by the time they call her name to go back inside, she often finds herself getting lost in one thought or another when she was out here, something about the fresh air, being away from the confines of her cell, it just made everything feel a little clearer. That’s another reason why she loves gardening so much, it gives her some headspace, some room to collect herself no matter what’s going on underneath it all. It’s a break in the monotony, too, busy work for idle hands, they say. Moments of normalcy are few and far between inside the prison walls, and Jamie’s just thankful for a taste of reality, however small it may be. 

Jamie loads the crate of tomatoes onto a trolley, and pushes it out of the greenhouse and across the gardens to the side door that leads directly to the kitchen. She’s supposed to be supervised, but she’s done this so many times now that nobody thinks twice about seeing her approaching the entrance. 

Jamie’s greeted by Owen. He’s grinning at her from the double doors, holding them open. His smile fades when he sees her face, and there’s a rare expression of seriousness on his face. When she’s in earshot, he jogs over to meet her, insisting that he push the trolley the rest of the way. ‘Now that is quite the shiner.’ He comments, the concern in his tone is lightened with his usual humour, and Jamie’s grateful that he doesn’t seem too worried. She hates worrying people, hates it with a passion, for the simple reason that she’s just not worth that kind of time or effort. ‘What happened there, then?’ he asks. 

Jamie just shrugs. ‘Nothing worth telling.’ She responds vaguely. 

Owen gets the impression that for some reason or another, Jamie’s not in the mood to tall about it, so he settles for a change of subject. ‘Ah.’ He starts. ‘I just figured it was from the fall.’

Jamie tilts her head in confusion. ‘What’re you on about?’

‘Nothing.’ Owen’s grinning now. ‘I just heard you’d had a fall, you know, for your teacher.’ 

She scoffs. ‘Oh, give over!’ She exclaims in defense. Owen chuckles, he probably shouldn’t be encouraging this, but he actually quite likes the idea of Dani and Jamie. There’s something that feels so fitting about their natures, complete opposites on the surface, but underneath it all, fundamentally they’re so alike. They feel hard, care enough to give every part of themselves to someone else, and it’s gotten them both into some pretty crappy situations. They compliment each other, ying and yang. Jamie has the same look in her eyes, the same contentedness he’s been seeing in Dani for the past few days, its clouded by fear, and confusion, but its there, and he’ll be dammed if he lets them throw that away over a few tricky logistics. ‘If anyone’s fallen its her, i’ll have you know.’ She pauses, her voice lowers. ‘Its not like anything’ll come of it, anyway.’

‘Why not?’ Owen challenges. 

Jamie’s searching for a response, and she’s well aware that she’s already taken too long to find one. She looks away, searching for something other than the ‘I told you so’ look Owen is currently giving her. ‘It’s just not practical.’

Owen is quiet for a second as they reach the doors to the kitchen. Jamie pulls one open, holds it in place for him as he manoeuvres the trolley of tomatoes inside. ‘Relationships, are never practical.’ Owen says when they’re both inside. ‘That’s how its supposed to be.’ 

Owen presses the brakes on the trolley, and the two of them fall into a rhythm of unloading the tomatoes, rinsing them off, and placing them into the trays in the fridge. Owen’s kitchen is always well organised, and always clean. Everything has its place and that’s how he likes it. Jamie gets it, he has a certain way of doing things just like she does, in her garden. 

When they’re done, Owen pours them both a cup of tea like always. The rest of the kitchen staff won’t be in for another half hour, so when Jamie has early morning shifts, she often sticks around for a bit, for a cuppa, and if she’s lucky, Owen will sneak her half a KitKat or a chocolate hobnob as well. 

Jamie’s leaning against the counter, holding the hot mug between her hands. Owen pulls a Twix out of his pocket and holds it out to her. ‘Haven’t seen you in the canteen for a few days.’ He says, he’s not expecting an explanation, and Jamie doesn’t plan on giving one either. She takes the biscuit gratefully. She hasn’t eaten a proper meal since the incident, and surviving off the snacks she has saved up from the tuck shop is getting a bit tricky, she’ll take what she can get. ‘Is that alright?’ He nods to the mug she’s placed on the counter in favour of ripping open the chocolate. 

Jamie nods. ‘Perfect.’ She responds as she takes a bite of the biscuit. 

//

Dani’s not expecting it when the phone rings. She had just been dozing off to the hum of an old cosset tape she’d found in a half unpacked box. It was probably one of her mom’s, or maybe even her dad’s, but for some reason it’d found its way across the ocean with her. She jumps up, runs a hand across her face to clear the haze of sleep. She’s not sure who might be calling her, but she finds herself hoping, hoping that when she picks up the receiver, she hears that robotic voice telling her that an inmate is attempting to contact her, asking her to press 1 if she accepts the call. Dani jogs to the other side of the room, she’s trying to ignore the excitement swelling in the bottom of her stomach, the way her fingers feel tingly as they grasp the phone and bring it up to her ear. 

‘An inmate is attempting to-‘ 

Dani cuts the recorded message off, pushing 1, turning to the lean against the wall. There’s three rings on the other end of the line, and then that unmistakeable northern accent cuts through, crisp, smooth. ‘Alright?’ Jamie greets her. Although Dani has only been in England for a few months, she’s already gotten quite familiar with most of the strange British colloquialisms, the weird little quirks that’d be met with a blank stare or a confused expression if she ever used them in the States. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d answer.’

‘Why wouldn’t i? Answer, I mean… I was hoping- well, not hoping, its not like I was expecting, but-‘ Dani cuts off her own rambling words, her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment. She’s glad Jamie can’t see it, but can practically feel the brunette’s teasing grin through the silence on the other end of the line. She takes a breath, steadies herself and tries again. ‘I’m glad you called.’ She slides her back down the wall until she’s sitting on the carpet, her knees bent up to her chest, phone clutched tight to her ear. ‘How are things?’

Jamie shifts her weight onto one leg, buys herself a second to consider her response. ‘I’m surviving.’ She answers carefully. She doesn’t want to worry Dani, but she doesn’t want to lie about her feelings, either. Tamara’s always banging on about communication, how important it is to share things, to not have to face things alone. It’s a foreign concept for Jamie, and she’s still coming to terms with the idea of burdening someone else with her own problems. ‘This morning was alright, did some work in the gardens, earned a biscuit for my trouble.’

‘That’s good.’ Dani hangs on every word Jamie says, she’s captivated by it, wants to savour every syllable and lock it away in her mind where it’s safe from the reality of their situation. She wants to protect it from the complications that this whole thing is riddled in, protect Jamie, protect herself. She wants to ask about the moonflower drawing, thinks back to the three words she’d written across the top of the scrap of paper. You, me, us, but she’s not sure if Jamie’s even found it, she’s not even sure if it actually meant anything in the first place. Jamie could’ve thrown it into the trash for all Dani knows, so she doesn’t mention it, leaves it to Jamie. 

Luckily she doesn’t have to wait long, because Jamie breaks the silence. ‘You know, next time you send me a love letter, you might want to be a bit less cryptic.’

Dani cant stop the smile that spreads across her face, because behind the jest in her words, there’s a disguised giddiness that Jamie is way too cool to ever actually admit to. ‘Well, I had limited resources.’ She defends herself, and the sound of Jamie’s laugh on the other end of the line might just be the most beautiful thing she’s ever heard. ‘I’m glad you found it, though.’

There’s a beat. ‘Me too.’ Jamie says, genuine, warm, though only for a moment. Dani has realised that although she plays up this tough, emotionless act, at the end of the day, Jamie is human, and humans are just that. We all have our vulnerabilities, and Jamie’s no exception to that. She keeps her weaknesses buried, covers them in dirt and leaves them there. The difference, though, is that Dani knows where to dig, or maybe she’s just the first person who cares enough to try. ‘Bit deep though, wasn’t it? My life’s depressing enough as it is, Miss Clayton.’ 

Dani laughs. ‘It’s just something I heard, though I can’t quite remember where.’ 

Seconds turn to minutes, minutes to more, and the moments blend together into an endless time, and yet its still not long enough. Dani could listen to the sound of Jamie’s voice all day. She’d happily sit here in silence while Jamie speaks, while she fills the silence with the story of a moonflower, talks about how there’s so much beauty in it all, in mortality and delicacy and how it all works together, how it breaks down and rises back up again, because that’s how life works. Its beautiful, natural. Human beings are organic, and exhaustive, even the best ones. 

‘We leave knew life behind to take our place.’ 

She’s so mesmerised that she almost doesn’t realise its over, doesn’t notice the male voice that interrupts them. 

‘Taylor, times up.’ 

And that’s it. Jamie says she has to go, that she’ll see Dani tomorrow in class, and Dani sighs as the line goes dead. 

Dani runs over the conversation in her head as she microwaves the leftover ravioli Hannah had brought her earlier. She can’t stop going over it, how Jamie has this knack of picking up on the details, how she sees beauty in things that would usually go unnoticed, the things that people don’t see unless they’re really, really looking for them. She’s pushing the last few pieces of ravioli around her plate, chin resting in the palm of her hand. She’s completely lost in those same, intricate details, and its then that she realises.

She’s falling. Hard. 

//

Jamie’s taken back to her cell block, the officer at her heels, he’s practically up her arse, and not just metaphorically. When they round the corner, out of any prying eyes, he takes the liberty to squeeze her arse cheek. Jamie grits her teeth, disguises the shiver that runs down her spine with anger, turns to him with her eyes wide. ‘Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me? No bullshit, I will fucking end you.’

She regrets it instantly, cursing herself internally for losing control of her mouth yet again, because he grabs her by the arm, fingers digging into her skin and pulls her toward him. He’s practically nose to nose with her, and for a second, Jamie’s scared he’s going to plant one on her or worse. Consent is irrelevant here. The officers get what the officers want, and although Jamie could hold her own pretty well in a fight, she was barely 5’4 and he wasn’t exactly a small man. Instead, though, he takes a breath, holds her firmly in place and spits. The disgusting fucker actually spits in her face, and there’s nothing she can do about it. He shoves her forward, and the rest of the journey is uneventful. 

When they reach Jamie’s cell, there’s four officers gathered outside it. Jamie presumes there’s been a fight, or maybe a drug tip, but upon further examination, she can see that its more than just the usual jailhouse drama. The door to the cell next to her is wedged open, and when she looks past the armed men and inside the cell, there’s a white sheet laid carefully over the woman who had inhabited it, who’s sprawled out on the floor. Motionless. 

Jamie feels her stomach drop through the floor, and bile rises in her throat. She swallows it down, watches as someone wheels a gurney up the hallway with a black body bag on top of it. ‘OD.’ One of the men informs the officer who still has a tight hold on Jamie’s arm. ‘Found her half an hour ago,’ he says, then he lowers his voice. ‘One less scumbag for society to worry about, eh?’

The man who’s got hold of Jamie just laughs in response. He stands there and laughs as he opens her cell door shoves her inside before pulling it shut, and then she’s alone. 

Outside her door, the commotion echoes around the cell block, and Jamie can hear almost every word, despite the hushed tones and terrible attempts to be discrete. She stands in the centre of the room, for some reason her muscles have given out on her, she’s frozen to the spot. Her brain is telling her to move, to sit, to do anything but stand here, but her body won’t cooperate. So she’s standing there, for god knows how long, not realising the silent tears that are pouring down her cheeks until the cool damp of the neck of her T-shirt alerts her to them. She pries free from her standing position and lowers herself to the edge of her mattress. 

Now Jamie was no stranger to death, she was no stranger to the darkness of mortality and she was generally at peace with it, something she had been telling Dani on the phone only minutes earlier. 

Dani. 

That’s when it hits her, and the vomit is rising into her chest again but this time she can’t hold it in. She bolts upright, sprints the two meters to her toilet and empties what little food is in her stomach into the metal bowl. 

After a moment, she lifts her head, flushes the chain and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She buries her face in her palms, rests her elbows on the rusted toilet seat. She cam’t do this. She can’t risk Dani losing someone, not again. Jamie recognises loss, she sees it everywhere and Dani’s no exception. Though she doesn’t know who, she knows the blonde is grieving, grieving someone from her past. Jamie can’t put her in that position again, she won’t. 

Jamie has to protect her, because nobody deserves that kind of pain, let alone twice. She’ll do anything to keep Dani safe, to protect her from anyone who might hurt her, and if that person, that threat, is Jamie herself, then so be it.


	6. a dangerous drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick TW for blood in this one.  
> Let me know what you think as always! :)

The next morning, as Jamie shuffles into the classroom, Dani’s waiting like usual. From the corner of her eye, Jamie can see that she’s trying to catch her gaze, trying to find a smirk or a wink, or something other than the blank expression Jamie’s painted across her features. Her eyes are fixed on the floor, still and narrow, and even as she gets to her seat, Jamie doesn’t look up. 

Dani’s still studying her, looking for a clue, any hint of anything at all, but Jamie wont budge, won’t crack because as much as she wants to, as much as she wishes she could just walk straight up to the front of the room, push Dani against the wall and press their lips together, as much as she wants to run her hands through the smooth waves of Dani’s hair, to tangle herself into Dani and never let go, she knows that she can’t. Dani is too important to her, too special for Jamie to put her at risk. Dani knows she’s been staring for too long, so she pries her gaze away from Jamie, busies herself with an introduction to Pythagorus’ theorem, she’s trying to focus on the straight lines of the triangular diagrams she’s constructing, trying to distract herself with hypotenuses and cosines, but even with all of that, her mind is spinning. 

Once she’s set the class off with a task, Dani sits down at her desk. Her own eyes are down, searching for something interesting in the notts in the wood of her desk in favour of torturing herself by searching for something in Jamie, something to explain why she’s suddenly so distant, so cold.

Dani’s going over their last conversation, reevaluating every response, every word spoken. She’s analysing the shape of it, the tone of it. She’s looking for anything she’s missed, for some hidden meaning behind even one part of it, but she’s coming up empty. There’s nothing to explain it away, nothing to help her to understand what the hell has gone wrong, what the hell is happening here. 

Jamie’s only glancing upwards to look at the next question on the blackboard, and then her head is down again, buried in her work and ignoring the rest of the room, the rest of the world. She thinks about her plan, about the life waiting for her if she manages to make it out of here alive. She’d liked the idea of inviting Dani into that, had become accustomed to the prospect, even, but that concept had been exactly that and she had to start thinking rationally, had to be realistic instead of getting her hopes up over a daydream, because that’s what Dani was, a delusion of what could’ve been, of what Jamie could’ve had if she was someone else, somewhere else, someday. 

But she’s not someone, or somewhere else, she’s Jamie Taylor, prisoner number 16392-071, and she’s fucking stuck here, surrounded by death and destruction and loneliness. She’s suspended, her entire life just hanging there, waiting for her to pick it back up again when she exits the prison gates three months from now – if. Truth is, Jamie doesn’t even know if she can do it, if the pieces left behind can be salvaged, can be built back up into something worth living, and she’s petrified of that, of not being able to glue them all back together

When the class is over, Jamie leaves without saying a word, and Dani can’t stop her eyes from following, from chasing Jamie’s movements until she disappears around the corner and out of sight. 

Once she’s gone, Dani’s still stood there, staring at the door as it slowly swings shut. She can feel her eyes start to sting, tears brimming, she curses herself for being so sensitive, for letting this upset her so much, but she’s just so confused. She sits back down at her desk, swallows back her tears and takes a deep breath. She wouldn’t let herself cry, even in the silence of her newfound isolation, so she stands, smooths out her shirt and made her way to the door, decides to head for the kitchen to see if Owen wants to grab lunch. She’s grasping for a distraction, because her own company is drowning her, and Owen always seems to know what to say to cheer her up. 

\\\

‘Well she seemed fine yesterday morning when I spoke to her.’ Owen’s pouring her a coffee as he speaks, and a cup of tea for himself. Dani still doesn’t really understand this whole tea thing, doesn’t see the appeal of boiled water mixed with milk and sugar, or why anyone would want to drink it, but Owen’s cookery skills seem to extend to hot drinks, because like his hot chocolate, his coffee is always immaculate. ‘Here we are.’ He hands Dani the mug.

Dani takes a sip, ashamed of how good it tastes in comparison to how her’s usually does. ‘Thank you.’ She says, smiles at him, pulls up a stool. He’s prepping for dinner, cutting carrots into thin round slices. ‘I spoke to her on the phone yesterday, and everything was fine… I’ve been going over it, y’know? To try and find something I’d missed, but… I don’t know, she’s acting like the past week never happened.

Owen stops what he’s doing for a moment, turns so he’s facing Dani. ‘Look.’ He starts, ‘I’ve known Jamie for a while, and I’ve come to realise that her intentions are always good.’ He’s pointing a carrot at Dani as he speaks, and if the context was different, it would be quite amusing. ‘I find that more often that not, she’s just trying to do the right thing, even if that ends up backfiring on her.’ Owen pauses, turns back to his chopping board. ‘It’s the whole reason she ended up in here in the first place.’

Dani mulls over his words for a moment, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. ‘You don’t think she’s trying to.. protect me or something, do you?’ She asks, although she’s unsure why Jamie would have suddenly felt the urge to do that. 

Owen shrugs, pops a piece of carrot into his mouth. ‘I’m saying, whatever’s going on, Jamie’ll have her reasons.’ 

Dani sighs, she reaches out to grab a piece of carrot for herself, but Owen swats her hand away. ‘Oi, keep your mitts off!’ 

Dani stays in the kitchen for the rest of Owen’s shift, watching as he works and insisting on helping where she can, washing cutlery and mashing potato. She needs to keep herself busy, needs to stay focused on something so she doesn’t lose herself in the notion that Jamie doesn’t want her anymore, doesn’t want this. She’s still washing up when Owen approaches her, tells her that he’s just got to pack up and then they’ll head out. ‘I didn’t see her out there again tonight, mind you.’ He comments, Jamie’s been skipping her meals, she’s been noticeably absent from the canteen and Owen only assumes its something to do with her bruised face. 

When she’s finished with the bowl she’s scrubbing Dani sighs. ‘I just wish I could… I don’t know, do something.’ She places the bowl onto the draining board and dries off her hand with the tea towel that’s slung over her shoulder, before folding it and placing it on the worktop. 

Owen nods. ‘Me too.’

They make their way out of the kitchen and Dani’s eyes fall on a sign on the wall with a black arrow, and the words BLOCK D written in bold capitals. The thought crosses her mind, to break away from Owen and run, run down the hall to where Jamie’s cell is, to burst in before anyone can stop her and just hold Jamie, to tell her everything’s okay, if only for a moment. But Dani doesn’t even know which cell Jamie’s in, and sports aren’t exactly her strong suit. They’d have her escorted out before she even made it into the block, and she’d definitely be fired. Without her job, all ties to Jamie would be essentially severed, and no matter what the brunette was going through right now, Dani knows she needs to be around her, knows that she needs Jamie in her life at least somehow, and she can’t risk losing her altogether. So she looks away, follows Owen down the hallway until they reach they exit. 

When they get back, Owen invites her over, but Dani declines. Its not that she wants to mope, to sit in the mystery of it all driving herself insane with a hundred different theories, but she doesn’t have it in her to put on a smile for her neighbours, she doesn’t want to talk about it, and although Hannah means well, Dani knows that if she asks her what’s wrong, she’ll lose control, her composure will go down the drain, and that would just be embarrassing. 

She shouldn’t be this wound up. She should definitely not be this upset over someone she’s knows a matter of days, yet here she is. She’s watching a shitty sad breakup movie, drinking wine from the bottle and eating Ben and Jerry’s straight out of the tub, but at least she’s not crying… yet.

Dani watches three whole movies, and eats half the tub of ice cream. 

That’s all well and good, except without even realising it, she’s gotten through ¾ of the bottle of red. Red wine is a dangerous drink, makes you do things you probably wouldn’t under normal circumstances, if it wasn’t giving you the courage, and it only takes one more glass to forces her up off the couch. She’s stumbling over to the phone, her body acting without her brain’s consent, and she’s picking up the receiver. 

‘Dani?” 

Dani has just realised that she hasn’t said a word yet, that she’d dialled the number for the prison, and then Jamie’s inmate number, and then she’d sat there, mouth agape at the sound of her voice. 

‘Dani?’ Jamie tries again, the frostiness in her tone fades a little, a little anxiety welling up in her stomach. ‘Are you alright?’

Dani laughs. She cant help herself, and it comes out a little harsher than she’d intended, she blames it on the wine. ‘No, Jamie…’ she starts, unsure of how Jamie could even assume she was anything close to alright. ‘I’m not alright, I’m confused and I’m hurt and I thought we were going somewhere.’ Her voice is shaky now, thick with emotion, and her eyes are burning. ‘I just, I don’t get it, I don’t know what I did wrong, i-‘

‘No,’ Jamie starts to interrupt. ‘No, no, it’s not you. It’s not you, Dani.’ She keeps her voice level, steady, as though her heart isn’t pounding out of her chest at the wobble in Dani’s voice. ‘It’s just… it’s complicated, this whole thing is a mess, and we can’t keep on doing it. I can’t keep on doing it. I can’t keep putting you at risk, it isn’t fair.’

‘Jamie.. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, you make me feel… like I belong, like I’m supposed to be right where I am.’ The flood gates have opened now, and tears spill out from Dani’s eyes, her voice cracks at the end of her sentence, and Jamie swallows the lump in her throat. 

Dani’s hurt, but if she doesn’t nip this in the bud now, it’s only going to get worse, only going to cause Dani more pain. She’s doing this for the bigger picture, because a little hurt now is better than a lot of it later, she’s doing what she thinks is best for Dani in the long run. ‘I’m so sorry, Dani. I really am, but you’re too important, you mean too much to me to put you in danger. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t.’ Jamie hears Dani sniff on the other end of the line, hears her shaky breaths as she cries silently into the receiver. She stays quiet for a minute, her guilt cutting her in two. She’d give anything to hold Dani, to tell her its going to be okay, but instead she just looks at the floor. ‘I’ve got to go. I really am so sorry, Dani.’

Then she’s gone, and Dani doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. She places the phone on the hook and walks over to the couch once more, sits and rests her elbows on her knees as she buries her face in her hands. She knows how pathetic this is, how these tears are fuelled by alcohol and tiredness and hurt, but they won’t stop coming and she doesn’t know what else to do, so she lets them fall, lets them fall until she’s exhausted herself into a restless sleep, and stays that way until the next morning.

//

Jamie’s mad. She’s mad at her situation, at how she got here. She’s mad at her parents for fucking her up like this. She’s mad at the perverted foster-fathers for what they did to her, for making her feel like she wasn’t worth the shit on her shoe. She’s mad at the whole fucking shit show of a world, but most of all, she’s mad at herself. She’s angry because she’s hurt the one person she never ever wanted to hurt, and because no matter how hard she tries, she always ends up causing pain. She should come with a warning. She hates herself for letting her life get this low, locked up for something she didn’t do, tied up in a concrete box full of stale old pervs and women who would kill for an extra sandwich. Jamie has always told herself that she won’t end up like her patents, lonely, and angry and sad, and yet at the ripe old age of 22, she was already all of those things. She’d outdone herself. 

She swipes at the tear that manages to escape her eye before anyone can see it, luckily the officer escorting her back to her cell is walking behind her, can’t see her lip as it trembles in a desperate attempt to hold herself together.

When they get to her cell and he shoves her inside, mutters something about her being a scruffy little cunt, Jamie doesn’t say anything, just waits for her door to swing shut, lies down on her mattress and stares up at the moonflower photo stuck above her bed. She’d slotted her own drawing behind it, so it stuck out at the side, reads the letters Dani had printed above it only days before.

You, me, us. 

And look where that had got her. 

\\\

By dinner time the next day, Jamie’s successfully numbed herself, which was so much easier than actually feeling anything right now. Her focus was on getting through the day, on keeping her head down because getting out of here was the only thing she had to hold onto, and she wasn’t about to let that go. 

Its for that reason that she’s kept to herself. For the past 2 days she’s stayed in her cell. Stayed quiet, read her book and listened to her stereo and doodled various different types of flowers onto scraps of lined paper. She drew daisies and lilies and azaleas, twisted them around each other, but no moonflowers, because moonflowers were reserved for her, and if she wanted to stay sane, Jamie couldn’t allow herself to think about her, couldn’t let her creep into her mind because then there would be no going back.

So, when the dinner bell rings, she doesn’t particularly want to get up and face the canteen, doesn’t want to see Owen and have to explain herself for hurting his friend, or listen to sympathy she doesn’t deserve, but Jamie’s ran out of snacks, and the tuck shop doesn’t open until lunchtime tomorrow, so she doesn’t really have another choice. She pulls herself up from her mattress and saunters over to her door before pulling it open and starting towards the canteen. 

When she gets there, Jamie contemplates just turning around and going hungry. The room is filled with chaos, even more so than usual. For some reason, the generally tense atmosphere has increased ten fold, there’s already been two fights and she’s only been in here a minute. Jamie joins the back of the queue, picks up a tray and makes her way along the dinner hatch. 

Owen’s watching as she approaches, and if she didn’t wish she’d stayed in her cell before, the idea was even more appealing now. She slides her tray along to him, and he’s smiling at her. She’s just glad he’s not upset with her, at least he doesn’t look it. ‘Hello stranger.’ He says brightly, and she smiles back gingerly. ‘I’m surprised you’ve not wasted away yet.’ He scoops Jamie’s portion of food onto a plate and adds a few extra potatoes with a wink.

Jamie nods. ‘Aw, you missed me, have ya?’ She asks, no matter how shitty she’s feeling, seeing Owen always seems to make things a little lighter. 

Owen puts a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t tell anyone. I have got a reputation to uphold, you know.’ 

‘Course you do.’ Jamie shakes her head as she picks up her tray and turns to find a seat. She’s cautious of who to avoid, makes sure to steer clear of the known trouble causers, settles on a table at the back, Janice from the gardens is sitting there, and there’s another older woman, probably about 50, sitting opposite her. She makes her way though the crowds, head down, making sure not to bump into anyone, even brushing against the wrong person’s arm could cause a riot, and she needed to avoid that. 

Once she’s made it to the table she takes a seat. The two other women barely acknowledge her at all, and that’s how she likes it. She eats in silence, scrapes her plate and makes her exit, leaves the canteen and turns the corner. She’s walking as quickly as she can without it turning into a run, because running causes a scene and that gets her into shit that she can do without. 

Jamie’s almost back, almost back to the safety of her bed, when she stops dead. 

At first she isn’t sure what it is, but something isn’t right. There’s a sharp pain in her side, a sudden twinge that spreads across her abdomen and suddenly her whole body is screaming in pain. Her hand goes subconsciously to where the pain originated, and her eyes go wide, because there’s a group of inmates running in the other direction, ones Jamie vaguely recognises. At the head of the group is the inmate who had shoved her the other day, who’d ended up in solitary for it. She’s the one holding something that shines under the fluorescent hallway lighting. The side of Jamie’s abdomen feels warm, wet, and she looks down at the red stain on her shirt. Its growing, and the realisation is sinking in. 

Her vision is spotty, her head is starting to swim and she’s unsure if the floor is tilting or if she’s falling sideways. She reaches for something, anything, to steady herself, but everything seems so far away, and its all getting smaller, further from her reach until its gone. Everything’s falling away and then there’s Dani. Dani and the waterfall that rushes behind her eyes, framed with droplets of water that sparkle in the sunlight, and she’s smiling. She’s smiling so wide that everything feels delicate, soft. Her hands cup Jamie’s cheeks, and she’s leaning in, and then she’s kissing her as Jamie rolls on top of her under the first rays of sun that stream through the crack in their curtains. 

There is peace. At long last, there’s peace, and it’s deep within both of their hearts. They’re holding each other, safe as their heartbeats crash into one another, explode when they touch, and then somethings changing.

Dani’s right eye isn’t blue anymore, instead, it’s a deep, dark brown, and its sucking Jamie into the dark with it. She can hear Dani’s voice, muffled and unclear. She’s telling her to wake up, wake up, Jamie. Wake up.

Jamie’s gasping, grasping for any air she can suck in, only to choke on it when she does, she’s coughing, and it hurts. Everything hurts. 

Faces fade in and out of view, the light fading and then reappearing seconds, or hours later, Jamie’s not sure. She vaguely remembers feeling some movement, something lifting her up and holding her in place, but then it’s dark again, it’s pitch black and she’s alone. There’s no more sun rays or ocean eyes and theres certainly no more Dani. There’s just Jamie, Jamie and the blackness that’s slowly enveloping her.


	7. tragedy

Dani contemplates just calling in sick, considers just lying here all morning, because she really doesn’t know if she has it in her to face Jamie, to face anything, if she’s honest. She doesn’t want to face anything that might remind her of Jamie, and what could’ve been if the universe wasn’t such a piece of crap. She doesn’t want to stand at the front of the classroom and talk about sonnets, talk about how Shakespeare developed this exact form of poetry for the soul purpose of expressing love. The hypocrisy of it all, of her standing there and preaching about the love language of the 16th century, when she’s almost completely certain that the whole notion of love, of finding somebody who truly completes you, who sees you for everything that you are and accepts that, celebrates that, is complete and utter bullshit. 

But whatever is going on in her personal life, Dani is a professional, she’s a teacher and she has a responsibility to do just that, to get these women the qualifications they deserve, and she’s not about to turn away from that, even if one of those women is Jamie. 

So Dani takes a breath and forces herself from the warmth of her duvet, into the bitter cold of the winter morning. Dani thinks about how much easier this would be if it was spring, even sumner, because at least then the air would be warmer, the colours would be brighter and she’d have something to look at, to turn to instead of turning inwards and watching her own thoughts as they battle against each other, go to war with themselves and take out anything in their path. Instead, the sky is shrouded in the clouds grey veil and the trees are haggard, lonely, and colourless and bare. 

Owen knocks for her at 8:30, just like always and she’s ready, coat and hat and backpack and shoes. She’s been leaning against the wall waiting for him for ten minutes, and yet she still hasn’t quite managed to prepare herself mentally for seeing Jamie in person, for watching for a sign that she knows won’t come. It seems cruel, that she has to stare the one thing she wants the most right in the face, that she has to sit with the only thing that’s ever made her feel something, really feel, with the knowledge that its been taken from her before she’d even had the chance to hold it. 

On the way to work, Dani nods off, and Owen lets her sleep. He’d heard her clattering around her apartment at various points during the early hours of the morning, Hannah was a heavy sleeper, him, not so much. It didn’t bother him, Owen had always been a night owl, perhaps it came from all the time he spent caring for his mother, his days filled with cleaning sheets, or having the same conversation five times in a row. The only time he really had for himself was when she slept, when the sky was dark and he could listen to the records that he’d kept, that reminded him of who his mother once was, who she really was. He’d been more concerned about Dani, he knows she’s still hurting over Jamie, and he feels a little guilty for his part in pushing them together. Still, he trusts Jamie, he knows that whatever she’s dealing with, it’s with Dani at the forefront of her mind, and he’s confident that they’ll work through this, one way or another. 

Owen pulls into a parking spot and shakes Dani awake gently. She’s sleeping with her head tilted back and her mouth wide open, snoring loudly. He finds himself wishing he’d had a camera, something he could document this with to tease her with later. Dani jumps awake, scrambles to wipe the drool from her cheek and rambles her apologies. Owen watches her in amusement, opens his mouth to say something, but the blonde holds up a hand to silence him, knowing all too well what’s coming. ‘Let me have this one.’ She pleads, and Owen decides to comply, closes his mouth again and climbs out of the car. 

After the usual routine of Owen walking her to her classroom, waving her off as she bypasses the stern glare of the officer at the door and makes her way inside, Dani walks over to her desk and sits behind it, opens an English literature textbook and flicks through until she finds the right page. She’s decided to switch up her lesson plan, choosing to tackle the more tragic elements of Shakespeare’s works, because for some reason it feels easier to teach something that actually holds some truth.

Dani wishes her stomach isn’t rolling over when the door opens and the inmates file in, maybe she’s anticipating the pending rejection that’s about to hit her for a second time, or maybe the butterflies just weren’t ready to settle, but either way she feels like she’s going to vomit right on the spot. She lowers her head as the women shuffle in and the scraping of chairs against the tiled floor fills the room. She’s looking down at her textbook and pretending to read it, hopes that her nerves aren’t showing in her face on the off chance that Jamie is looking at her. When she hears the door shut, she closes the book, switches to the register without looking up. She’s reading the names out as they’re listed, organised into the alphabetical order of the students’ surnames. Despite her best efforts, the closer she gets to the letter T, she can hear her voice losing strength, starting to shake a little. 

‘Jamie?’ 

As she speaks her breath hitches in her throat and she almost chokes on her own words, but somehow she manages, waits for the sound of Jamie’s voice to bounce back at her, waits for it to smack her hard, right in the pit of her stomach, but it doesn’t come. Dani repeats herself, as if the first time wasn’t hard enough. She assumes the brunette is daydreaming, or perhaps she just wants to torture her into looking up from the paper in front of her, which she does.

Dani looks up, eyes falling on the empty desk at the back corner of the room where Jamie always sat, where her gaze migrated to whenever she needed reassurance, whenever she needed a gentle smile, or a nod of approval, or just to look into the green of Jamie’s gaze and ground herself in it. She scans the rest of the room, makes sure that Jamie hadn’t chosen another seat for some reason, but none of the blank faces staring back at her are Jamie’s. She’s not here, and Dani isn’t sure if she’s going to start crying there and then.

Why wasn’t she here?

Dani shuffles through a messy deck of cards in her mind, each of them with an explanation, a theory as to why Jamie wasn’t sitting in front of her. Because despite their situation, despite everything, Jamie had signed up to this class to achieve something, to prove something. Dani’s praying that the circumstances haven’t impacted on the potential she knows Jamie has, she’d never forgive herself if she’d jeopardised that, put her own feelings above Jamie’s education. 

Dani tries to rationalise, maybe Jamie’s just sick, maybe she’s got some sort of meeting or they need her in the gardens to cover a shift, all of those things are 100% feasible, but something in the back of her mind is telling her different, a nagging feeling that doesn’t go away when Dani moves onto the next name in the register, that stays present as she talks about the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, how their need for one another had ultimately lead them to their fate, how their love had blinded them to all logic and left them so desperate that they destroyed themselves. 

The feeling isn’t fading, if anything it’s getting stronger, harder to ignore as the hours tick by, as the students write and Dani attends to any queries they have. By the end of the lesson, she can barely see past it, can barely even comprehend the words the officer is saying to her once the women have been escorted out of the room. He’s saying something about having not wanted to cause any drama in front of the other prisoners, ignite any underlying issues that might be bubbling under the surface. Tells her that between them, he’d heard there was an incident yesterday evening, that he wasn’t working that shift, but the circulating rumours he’d overheard in the break room were all about the stabbing last night in block D, that it was something to do with that frizzy haired lesbo who worked in the gardens. That’s it, that’s all he knows. 

Dani cant move. The colour drains from her cheeks and her mouth drops open like she’s some sort of ghost, like she’s a ghost trapped in limbo, between life and death, one foot planted firmly in each dimension as they blend together, melt into one and take her by her throat as they drag her into the ibis. Time doesn’t seem to really mean anything, and she doesn’t remember the officer leaving, or how she ended up in Owen’s kitchen, wrapped in his arms as she cries. He’s holding her firmly in place, and it might just be the only thing keeping her standing, keeping what’s left of her in one piece. She knows Owen and Jamie are friends, and she can feel his heart is racing through his shirt. She wants to comfort him, he’s known Jamie longer, he has more reason to be upset.

Upset. It feels like an injustice, because what Dani is feeling now, she doesn’t think fits under any existing emotion. Her whole body feels like its being ripped open, limb from limb, only she’s wide awake for the whole thing. She can feel every tear, every cut as its pulled apart with fear. 

It’s hitting her now, as her tears stain Owen’s apron in the middle of the kitchen. It’s hitting her that she can’t imagine it, that she can’t imagine a world where Jamie isn’t in it. Not only that, but she doesn’t want to either. 

She doesn’t want a world without Jamie.

// 

‘Careful, it’ll be hot.’ Owen hands Dani a mug of chamomile tea, its something his mother used to make him when he was upset as a child, and it always seemed to take the edge off. He’s taken Dani into a staff room she’s never been in before, sat her down at a round wooden table as he busied himself with the drinks. He takes the seat opposite her, his own cup of tea placed between his hands.

Dani’s managed to quell her sobs into an occasional sniffle, and her breathing, though shaky, has evened out into a much more steady rhythm. ‘Thank you.’ She says quietly, staring into the orange liquid, watches the tealeaves dance about each other.‘I’m sorry… for all this.’ She’s referring to the past half hour, the damp patches on Owen’s chest where her tears had soaked through his clothes. 

Owen’s shaking his head before she’s even finished her sentence. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for.’ He says, there is a rare seriousness in his tone, its gentle, yet firm. He takes a sip of his tea, places it back down onto the table before he continues. ‘Hannah knows the head nurse at the infirmary, they’ve been friends for years. She’s already gotten in touch with her, so she should be down in a few and we’ll go from there, find out what’s gone on. The gossip in here is usually half the problem.’ He’s trying to stay positive, to keep Dani’s mind from running away with her any further. He’s trying to rationalise with his own thoughts, too, but he knows all too well what usually comes of these kind of incidents. The officers usually didn’t care enough to save a prisoners’ life, because that’s all the women were to them, statistics, a problem to be solved. He knows that Jamie is no exception, that to them, it didn’t matter how she got here, the circumstances were irrelevant. She’s just one less burden to carry in their eyes, and that’s the scariest part. 

There’s a break in the silence when there’s a knock on the door, and it slowly opens. A woman in a white nurses dress and cap stands by the doorframe, and Owen stands to greet her. The woman is pretty, with dark hair plaited neatly over her shoulder and deep brown eyes to match. She’s smiling, half in sympathy, as Owen hugs her. 

When they break apart, Owen turns back to Dani, gestures to the nurse. ‘Dani Clayton, meet Miss Rebecca Jessel.’ He introduces them to each other, pulls out a seat at the table for Rebecca beside his. 

Rebecca thanks him, sits and holds out a hand across the table in Dani’s direction. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Dani Clayton. I’ve heard a lot about you.’ She smiles genuinely. Hannah had often brought Dani up when they met up for coffee or a drink at the bar, there was always a lovely little story to be told about the quirky blonde American who had moved in next door. Dani mimics Rebecca’s movement, shakes her hand as she returns a half hearted smile through a bleary-eyed haze of worry. ‘I’m just sorry it isn’t under better circumstances.‘ Rebecca adds as her smile fades a little. 

Dani nods, averts her gaze because she can feel her eyes tearing up again at the thought of the incident, at the idea of Jamie hurt, or worse.

‘Your friend was brought to the infirmary last night, they found her unconscious with a stab wound to the abdomen.’ She pauses, watches Dani’s silent tears as they slide down her cheeks. Owen reaches over, places a hand on top of one of Dani’s. ‘Miss Taylor came in with some internal bleeding, and luckily for her, Dr Wingrave was on call, he’s the best physician we have here. He had to carry out an emergency procedure, the blade missed her kidney, but he had to remove her spleen.’ 

Rebecca has a smooth gentleness to her voice, she’s very well spoken, her accent mirroring Hannah’s rather than the roughness of Jamie’s. Theres’s another pause, and this time it’s Dani who speaks up. ‘I-is she…is she going to be okay?’ her voice cracks despite her best effort, its shaky and timid, like she’s afraid to hear the answer, because sometimes no news is better than bad news. ‘She’s going to be okay, right?’ her gaze shifts between the nurse and the chef desperately, searching for an answer behind Rebecca’s eyes. 

The other woman sighs, her expression still sympathetic, sad. ‘She’s still unconscious right now.’ She begins, and Dani feels like she’s setting her up for something worse. ‘They’re planning on lowering the sedation today, but there was a lot of damage, a lot of bleeding in her tummy. Dr Wingrave did his best, but the rest is really up to Jamie now.’

Dani doesn’t say anything, just nods slowly as she processes what Rebecca is telling her. She’s repeating the words in her mind, going over them in an effort to find something reassuring, something she can hold onto. Jamie’s alive. She’s alive, and that’s something, isn’t it? She’s alive, but what good is that if she doesn’t wake up? Where does that leave Dani? Losing Jamie to a situation, to a lack of practicality, or whatever reason Jamie had half-heartedly given her on the phone two days ago, was one thing, but to lose her physically, to really lose her and to never be able to hold her again, to never feel the brush of her soft lips, to have the safety of Jamie’s kiss ripped away from her with no chance of her ever getting it back. That’d split Dani’s heart in two, pull it out of her chest and drop it onto the floor, so that all she can do is watch as it shatters. Without Jamie, every piece that had fallen into place, every thought that had came and gone, was stripped away and scattered like ash. 

Rebecca is watching her apologetically, she stands, says she has to get back to the infirmary, she’s left the deputy in charge and she doesn’t trust her as far as she can throw her. 

Dani almost doesn’t manage it, almost doesn’t muster the courage before Rebecca stands from her seat and says her goodbyes, and its not until the nurse has her hand on the doorknob, that Dani’s mouth opens of its own accord, and she’s forming words she can barely even hear above the sound of her own heartbeat. ‘Can i… do you think I could come with you?’ She asks. ‘Just to sit with her, just… to keep her company.’

Rebecca’s hand rests on the metal handle, looks over her shoulder at Dani’s pleading expression, at the quiver of her lip and the pools of tears that are brimming in her eyes. Perhaps it’s something about the desperation in her voice, or just the idea that someone cares so much about one of these women, but Rebecca finds herself struggling to argue. She’s worked at the prison since she got out of college, seen so many women come through her doors and has never forgot a face. She’s seen them disregarded, shunned, bullied, without a second thought to how they ended up here. Jamie is one of the good ones, she knows that much. Owen and Hannah wouldn’t go to this effort if she wasn’t, and for whatever reason, Jamie clearly means a lot to Dani. That much is evident. 

So, without really realising, Rebecca is nodding, despite the amount of protocols this will break, the amount of trouble she could get into if she’s found out, she agrees. 

Dani looks over to Owen, who nods, gives her the okay to follow Rebecca as she heads out of the room. Dani jogs to catch up with her until they’re walking in step with each other, but she’s a little taken back when the brunette stops, turns to her in the middle of the hallway. ‘She’s lucky to have you.’ Rebecca says. A little like Hannah, Dani feels safe in Rebecca’s presence, they have the same gentle feel to their movements, tones, and its nice. It puts her at ease a little, especially knowing that Jamie is under the care of someone who actually gives a crap if she lives or dies. Its something that cant be said for most of the staff at the prison.

Dani doesn’t really know how to respond to that, so she nods again, and she’s grateful when the nurse continues on down the hall. 

They navigate a maze of corridors, which Rebecca seems to know like the back of her hand. Dani isn’t sure if she’ll even be able to find her way out of here. It feels like they’ve walked a mile before the smell of antiseptic fills the air and they pass a sign that reads INFIRMARY with a black arrow pointing left. They turn, make their way through some double doors and into a large white reception area. The receptionist looks up as they enter, but she doesn’t acknowledge Dani. There’s another set of double doors and then they’re in a dimply lit corridor with lines of heavy metal doors on each side. There’s no security presence, a stark contrast to the rest of the prison, and Dani isn’t sure if that a good or bad thing. Four doors down on the right, Rebecca stops and turns to Dani. ‘She’s in here.’ She gestures, signalling for Dani to pull the door open. The blonde hesitates for a second, her stomach rolling over at what she might find behind the door, but she sucks in a breath and straightens as she turns the handle. 

The room is filled with the rhythmic beating of a heart monitor, and the whirring of various machines displaying numbers and graphs Dani didn’t understand. The bed is in the centre, metal frame standing out against the whitewashed walls. Dani’s eyes fall on Jamie, work their way up from the foot of the bed to the top.

Dani has to do a double take, because the ashen face, the stillness of her limbs, is so far from the Jamie she knows. Her Jamie is full of life, her smile is magnetic and her eyes are electric, filled with an emerald sparkle, sparks that ignite everything they touch. Her Jamie isn’t pale, unmoving, smothered by the white of the hospital bed sheets with a tube shoved down her throat. Dani scans her features, the bruise across her cheek is fading, but the whiteness of her skin makes it stand out angrily, makes it look even more painful than it had when Dani had first laid eyes on it days ago. She half expects Jamie to jump up, to open her eyes and laugh about how worried Dani is over nothing, but Jamie stays put, and Dani walks toward her. 

Dani had forgotten Rebecca was standing behind her until the nurse speaks up. ‘I’ll give you some privacy.’ She says gently. ‘I’ll be back in about an hour, alright?’

Dani thanks her, really thanks her, hopes that her gratitude isn’t clouded with her fear. The door clicks shut and then they’re alone. They hadn’t been alone since that moment, since the kiss that changed everything, that made Dani feel untouchable, unbreakable. It’s a far cry from her current position. 

She makes her way to Jamie’s side, pulls over the plastic chair from the corner of the room and positions it so she’s facing her and reaches out. She hesitates for a second, but then she picks up Jamie’s hand. She cups it in both of her own and runs her thumb over her knuckles. It feels colder than the last time, and it’s limp against her own, but its still Jamie’s hand, still the hand that had grazed across Dani’s cheek, ran through her blonde hair as they crashed into one another. It still made Dani feel safe, whole.

‘I’m here, Jamie.’ She whispers as she leans over and places a gentle kiss on her forehead. ‘I’ve got you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	8. rose bushes

‘Don’t touch that.’ Jamie’s walking into the kitchen, she’s dressed in black pyjama shorts and a white tank top with a blue and grey checked flannel shirt unbuttoned over the top. Dani turns to face her, her blonde hair falls over her shoulders, unbrushed, and yet it tumbles in perfect golden waves that catch the sunlight as it peaks in through the cracks in the blinds that cover the kitchen window. Dani’s wearing one of Jamie’s band tees, holding up a carton of milk in one hand and a teaspoon in the other. There are two mugs placed on the worktop, still empty. Jamie makes her way over to Dani, a toothy. grin playing across her features. ‘You’ll just desecrate it.’

Dani places the items she’s holding on the counter, turns toward Jamie and takes a step closer to her. Jamie reaches out before Dani can close the gap between them, pulls her in until their lips touch, it’s gentle at first, then a pull back, a tender look and a glittering smile and then its back to it, lips meet again, its harder this time, firmer and its so certain, so clear. Jamie wraps her arms around Dani’s shoulders as her girlfriend’s tongue grazes over her teeth. They tangle around each other in the centre of the kitchen, the centre of a world they’d built around themselves, a home that they’d each found in the other person. Jamie smiles into the kiss, couldn’t have held it back if she’d tried, which she didn’t. Jamie dominates the kiss, manoeuvres Dani’s body toward the couch and pushes them both down onto it. She kicks a cushion out of the way as she rolls on top of Dani, scatters kisses across the exposed collar bone that sticks out from the top of her oversized t-shirt. Dani’s giggling as Jamie lifts her head, aligns her lips with Dani’s and leans in, slips her tongue into the blonde’s mouth. 

Dani breaks off the kiss, smiles against Jamie’s lips and speaks into them. ‘We have to get-‘ she’s interrupted by her inability to resist when Jamie kisses her again. ‘For work.’ She finishes, manages to slither out from beneath Jamie, who flops onto her back in defeat. 

‘But-‘ Jamie starts as she reaches out, catches Dani’s hand as she starts to walk away. 

Dani whips around, places a kiss into Jamie’s curls. ‘Those plants won’t water themselves, love.’ She says. It earns her a sigh of disapproval from Jamie, but the brunette heaves herself off the couch dramatically nonetheless, allows Dani to drag her back into the bedroom and over to their closet. 

‘Fine.’ Jamie pulls out an old tee and a corduroy over-shirt, some worn out light blue denim dungarees and shrugs off her flannel. ‘Your loss.’ She adds with a wink as she pulls off her tank top. She’s not wearing a bra, and Dani can’t cover her attempt to drag her eyes away before they’re pulled back to Jamie’s tits. 

The blonde woman turns back to the closet, distracts herself by shuffling through her shirts and sweaters and pulling out a lilac button up blouse. When she’s done, Jamie is already stepping into her dungarees, pulls them up over her t shirt, she’s still smirking at Dani, refusing to go down without a fight. Dani points a finger at Jamie accusingly, tries not to smirk back because she’s seconds from jumping Jamie right there, and if they started, they wouldn’t stop, and like she’d said; those flowers won’t water themselves. ‘Oh, behave.’ Dani warns.

Jamie lets out a laugh. She looks up from her work-boot in her lap, the laces she’s been untying momentarily forgotten. ‘Bloody hell...’ She starts. ‘You really can’t resist me, can ya?’

Dani turns her face away but she’s not quick enough to hide her embarrassment, shakes her head and presses her lips together. She completely turns away from Jamie, then, chin stuck out as she walks over to the bedroom door. ‘You’re going to hell, y’know!’ She calls over her shoulder, hears Jamie’s laugh from the other room. She’s picturing the mischief in her expression and she smiles to herself, Jamie’s laugh was her favourite sound in the world, from the first time she’d heard it, it makes her feel so warm inside, fills up any empty that might try to creep in. 

Jamie emerges from the bedroom with both work boots on and her big ‘garden coat’ slung over a shoulder. She drops the jacket over the back of a chair and turns her attention to the unfinished mugs of tea Dani had left abandoned on the worktop earlier. ‘Watch and learn, Poppins, watch and learn.’

Jamie takes a sip of her own drink, watches as Dani mirrors her action and shoots her a smug look. Dani can’t deny that the beverage Jamie hands her is far better than any she’s ever made. That’s not fair, you have an advantage.’ Dani pouts through her smile. 

Jamie tilts her head in response. ‘What’s that then?’

Dani hesitates, she hadn’t planned this far ahead. ‘You’re British.’ She blurts out to fill the silence, feels her cheeks heat up a little as Jamie scoffs, repeats her words in monotone.

‘My advantage, is that I’m British?’ Jamie’s raising her eyebrows, a questioning expression on her face. ‘Right, all makes sense now, yeah.’ She adds, voice dripping with sarcasm. Dani plucks a sugar cube from a glass jar on the counter, throws it in Jamie’s direction, but Jamie catches it in one hand and pops it into her mouth. ‘Watch yourself, sugarplum.” She smirks, passing Dani as she walks out of the kitchen and smacking her arse. ‘All ready?’

‘All ready.’ Dani confirms as she follows Jamie out of the apartment. 

As they leave though, Jamie finds that her world with Dani fades slowly into blackness, and she’s left hanging there again amongst it for an endless stream of bitter cold time.

// 

There are three gentle knocks at Jamie’s door at about 6pm, Owen had gone back to work after Dani and Rebecca left, he was always better when he was doing something, and that something was usually cooking. He peaks his head around the side of the doorframe, and Dani smiles up at him, eyes still puffy from crying, but the glaze of tears had cleared from them now, her movements less tense, less jagged. He walks the rest of the way into the room nudging the door open as his hands are filled, a cup of coffee in each. He offers one out to Dani. ‘If you’re feeling anything like me, this’ll take the edge off.’ He smiles, Dani accepts the drink gratefully, takes a large gulp of it and swallows, before her face contorts and she turns to Owen, tongue pointing out in disgust. ‘That is hideous.’ She spits, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand. 

Owen cant help but chuckle, shrugs his shoulders and holds up his hands in defence. ‘Don’t look at me,’ he says. ‘That’s from the vending machine in the hall.’ 

They both laugh, but it dies out pretty quick, forced into silence by the constant beating that signalled each time Jamie’s heart beat. It had come to be a combination of the most comforting and terrifying sound Dani’s ever heard, a continuous reminder of how close she is to losing Jamie altogether, but at least it was there, at least her heart was pumping at all. 

Owen takes in Jamie’s appearance, he can’t hide his sadness over how little she looks, her age is suddenly so apparent, she’s barely into her twenties. She looks so small, so vulnerable. ‘How’s she doing?’ He asks.

‘She’s hangin’ in there.’ There is a halfhearted positivity to her tone, and Dani tries to emphasise it with a half smile, but neither of them have it in them to keep up the act, and Dani’s smile soon fades out altogether. ‘They’ve reduced her sedation by 50%, but she hasn’t really responded to that at all.’ She sighs, her hand is still resting on top of Jamie’s, she hasn’t let go since she got here hours ago and she doesn’t plan on it either. ‘It’s like Nurse Jessel said, the rest is up to Jamie, now.’

//

When the darkness clears, Jamie is at Bly, working in the gardens as Dani plays some imaginary game with Flora. Dani works as a nanny for the same family Jamie gardens for. They live in a beautiful manor, far from the bustling chaos of the streets of central London, Bly Manor seems to belong to its own corner of the world, disconnected from any other reality but the one it has formed around itself. The landscapes are mesmerising, huge gardens that spread into the distance, they’re lined with greenery, flowers that are waking with spring. There’s a lake, too, a large stretch of water that you could lose yourself in if you weren’t careful, sink beneath the surface and never come up for air again. The children were 8 and 10, orphans who’d had it pretty rough over the past three years, and Dani’s perfect for the position, she’s done wonders for them, really brought them back to themselves. 

Jamie watches in awe from the patch of roses she’s tending to as Dani picks Flora up and spins her around, her heart fills up, completely overflows at the magic aura they’re wrapped in as they dance in the sunlight. The little girl looks up at Dani like she’s hung the moon and stars, and Jamie knows exactly how that feels, to look at someone with so much admiration that you’re almost paralysed by it. She feels that way every day, every second she spends with Dani, and it’s incredible. 

Dani sends Flora inside, tells her to go wash her hands for lunch and help set the table, she does as she’s told without question, beaming at the opportunity to earn some praise from Dani. She runs off across the grass and up the driveway before she disappears into the house. 

Dani watches her go, only turns around when she’s sure Flora’s inside and turns to pick up the dolls that have been left scattered across the picnic blanket laid out on the lawn. As she bends down she catches Jamie’s eye from behind the rose bushes, catches the look of pure adoration on her face and her lips curve upwards as the gardener stands, starts toward her with her smile unwavering. When Jamie reaches Dani, she pulls a hand from behind her back and holds it out. She’s holding a single red rose, and Dani rolls her eyes at the softness of it all, of being presented with a freshly picked rose by the love of her life in the middle of one of the most beautiful places on Earth. ‘What’s this for?’ She smiles as she takes the flower in her hand. 

Jamie shrugs, her head tilts slightly as she responds. ‘Just for being you, Poppins.’ She smiles. 

//

Dani isn’t sure how much time has passed when Owen tells her they should get going, she glances at the clock and for a second she’s not sure if its broken or not, because the time reads 8:15pm. Surely she hadn’t let that much time slip through her fingers.

She looks from Owen to Jamie, and then back again, thinks for a second before she responds. ‘I… I think I’m gonna stay, if that’s okay with you?’ She says. She’s hesitant, but its more about not wanting to offend Owen, not wanting him to think she didn’t want to ride home with him, than actually being unsure of what to do. Dani isn’t leaving Jamie’s side, that much is certain, though its one of the only things that is, one of the only things she isn’t doubting herself over, because, despite everything beneath the surface, Jamie needs her. If she’s honest, Dani knows she needs to be here, too. She knows that she needs to be close to Jamie, for her own peace of mind if nothing else. 

Owen nods, he understands, if he’s completely honest he prefers the idea, knows that Jamie shouldn’t wake up alone from something like this, and if the worst did happen, having someone by her side was even more important. He tries to shelve that thought, packs it away because they’re not at that point yet, and hopefully they never will be. ‘I’ll get Hannah to pack you some stuff up and I’ll run it back up to you.’ He says, and Dani’s already opening her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off before she can argue. Insists that its fine, no trouble at all, it’ll give him something to do while Hannah watches Corrie on the telly. 

He says his goodbyes and excuses himself, leaves Dani alone once more with Jamie, or rather, the shell of Jamie. 

//

Jamie’s getting a little tired of this, of hopping between dreams of Bly, of this reality her subconscious has created. She knows it’s not actually reality, knows that it probably never will be either, but it feels so real, she’s completely immersed in it, and it’s not half bad, really. Jamie still doesn’t quite know why she’s here, though, but if she is dead, if this is the afterlife then she’s pleasantly surprised. Getting to live like this for the rest of eternity was a far better alternative than where her mother had told her she would end up when she’d walked in on Jamie kissing Stacey Jackson when they were supposed to be working on a history project together. If this was hell, then she was pretty content with it. 

They’re back in their apartment now, the sun is setting behind the clouds and its casting shadows across Dani’s face as she reads a magazine, feet propped up on the coffee table, and a glass of gin and lemonade beside her. Jamie’s watering the plants along the kitchen windowsill, sprinkles each one with a dusting of plant food as she goes. They’re almost completely bloomed, now, marking the height of spring with delicate pinks and whites. 

She’s sneaking glances at her girlfriend on the couch, her mind racing with a million different ways she could be kissing her right now, and she thinks that maybe she’ll try a few out when she’s done with the plants. 

When she manages to pull her gaze from Dani, though, Jamie’s eyes widen. The watering can in her hand is leaking, a gentle stream of water that’s getting faster and faster, after a few seconds its rushing out, starts to fill the kitchen, floods the worktops and her plants are scattered amongst the growing tide. Her attention turns to Dani, but she’s too late, the blonde has disappeared beneath the murky waters and Jamie’s frantic now, ducks under the waves and pushes through them desperately. ‘Dani!!??’ She’s screaming into the depths of the water. Their kitchen is all but gone, now, consumed by the tumbling tide, and then she sees her. Dani is lying at the bottom of the lake, eyes wide open, and every detail of her beautiful face is smothered in deep blue. Jamie’s reaching out to her, begging her for something, though she’s not sure what. She says the words, the ones Dani had wrote all those years ago on a scrap of paper, snuck into her pocket. 

You, me, us. 

But Dani won’t take her, won’t pull Jamie to her fate no matter how hard the gardener begs her to. 

Jamie doesn’t remember when she stopped screaming, when she stopped pleading for Dani to drag her down, when she gave in and swam ashore, but the water has dried up now, and her world is fading to black again. Its like something from a movie. This time, though, she welcomes it, welcomes the silence of the darkening void because anything is better than what she’s just watched, what she’d just been forced to witness. She’d take an eternity of darkness over that any day. 

//

The next morning, Dani wakes early, the clock reads 5:37, and she rubs at her eyes to shift the last bits of her restless sleep from them. Dani straightens, stretches out her arms and legs. Sleeping in a chair is not practical at all, and her neck aches in protest at her decision to do so. Dani hadn’t slept much, though, waking up at any change in speed or pitch of the machines around Jamie’s bed, or whenever Rebecca entered the room to check her numbers. Each time, her stomach rolled over in the same mixture of anxiety and excitement, fear blended with hope, that this time Jamie might finally be coming back to her, but then her eyes would settle on the Jamie’s sleeping form, graze over her features, but Jamie’s eyes would remain closed, her hands cold and unmoving. 

Owen stops by when he gets into work, brings Dani a breakfast bagel and a homemade coffee, having learnt his lesson from the vending machine incident the previous day. Dani thanks him, she wolfs down the bagel, only now realising she hasn’t eaten since the previous morning, the hunger catches up with her and she finds herself wandering down the hall to the dreaded vending machine to see what snacks they had. She settles on a bag of quavers, because surely she couldn’t go far wrong with those. She grabs herself a bottle of water, too, before heading back to Jamie’s side. 

Rebecca comes in not long after, says she’s going to reduce Jamie’s sedation again to give her another push. She makes some notes on her clipboard and then she’s gone again, moves onto the next patient. Dani thinks about how hard it must be, to work triple shifts with limited staff and equipment and just try to get through each day without losing a patient. She doesn’t envy the nurse, knows that she couldn’t face this every day, and wouldn’t want to either. Jamie’s lucky Rebecca cares so much about her patients, doesn’t see them as numbers on a sheet like most people would. 

When Rebecca’s gone, Dani pulls open her crisps and tries to focus on eating instead of constantly checking Jamie’s stats, instead of second guessing every trick her mind plays on her. Hannah had given Owen some of her old books to read to pass the time. Aside from Rebecca and Owen, or occasionally one of the other nurses, nobody came in or out of Jamie’s room so for the most part Dani was left sitting in her own company, letting the seconds tortures her as they morph into hours, and still no movement, still no sign that Jamie is any closer to waking up. 

Dani picks up a book from the top of the pile Owen had left by the door, turns it over and studies the blurb. She flicks through it, the corners of the pages are worn out with use, the pages yellowed over time. The spine is still in beautiful condition, though, wrapped carefully in leather. It’s a copy of Jane Eyre, one of Dani’s favourites of all time. Her mother had given it to her on her fifteenth birthday, one of the only thought out presents she’d ever received from the woman. Dani had read it at least a dozen times, and yet she opened the book to the first page. ‘How about I read some of this for you?’ She says, looking up at Jamie, squeezes her hand. 

Dani feels a little silly talking to Jamie’s motionless body as if the brunette is going to open her mouth and respond to her, or something, but unbeknownst to Dani, the reduction of the sedation was slowly working its way around Jamie’s body, and although she was still suspended in pitch black, the sounds of her environment were slowly starting to fade in and out of earshot. Jamie rolls her eyes internally at Dani’s question. 

Nice one, yeah, if the blood loss hasn’t killed me yet, leave it to Miss Dani Clayton to bore me to death instead. She says to herself in amusement. 

What was Dani doing here anyway? She considers that its another dream, but it feels different this time, Dani feels closer, like she’s just out of reach. 

It’s just out of reach.


	9. what the hell is a Poppins?

Pain. That’s the first thing Jamie registers, the first piece of reality she can distinguish. It’s a sharp ache in her stomach, a deep pulsating sort of pain that feels relentless and intense and FUCK its so bright in here, why’s it so fucking bright? Jamie’s eyelids snap closed again, an attempt to escape the sudden wash of light that’s all around her. She welcomes the darkness that falls in its place, but the pain is more difficult to get away from, it’s pounding against her abdomen and spreading slowly across her whole body until she can’t take it anymore. She needs to know what’s happening, needs to ask someone what the hell is going on, why she can’t seem to get her body to move, or form any sort of sound that might rouse someone’s attention. 

So she pulls open her eyes again, slower this time, gives herself a second to adjust to the brightness. When the fuzziness in her vision clears a little, and she can make out the rectangles of the tiles on the ceiling above her, she lets her gaze venture over to the side, matches the irritating regular beeping to a green line on a black screen to her left showing the rise and fall of a heartbeat. It’s these repetitive peaks and troughs running along the monitor that push Jamie’s brain into action, all of the events that lead her here are spiralling into place and she’s starting to remember it all. She remembers leaving the canteen, and the feeling of dread that filled her whole being when she realised this was it, this was the end. 

Only, it wasn’t the end, clearly. It couldn’t have been the end, because her eyes fall on the blurred outline of a familiar figure, brush over the curve of her shoulders as she hunches over a book. She’d recognise her presence anywhere, the gentle smell of lavender and fresh linen sheets. Dani always smelt amazing. Jamie feels herself relax a little, because in this moment nothing else really matters. Despite the pain and the bright lights and the hazy sequence of events that still aren’t quite clear in her mind, despite the fear that’s bubbling in her chest, Dani’s here, she doesn’t know why or how, but Dani’s here with one of her hand resting on top of Jamie’s, with delicate blonde waves falling around her shoulders and that iridescent shine in her eyes as they lift to meet her own. 

‘Jamie.’ Dani breathes, casts her book aside and scoots her chair impossibly closer to the side of the bed. ‘Hi, hey.’ She’s stroking the side of Jamie’s uninjured cheek, brushing her curls aside and although its shaking, her hand is steady, precise in its movements and soft against Jamie’s face. 

Rebecca had replaced the breathing tube that had been inserted into Jamie’s throat with a thin tube that loops around her face earlier that morning, and Jamie tries to reach up to pull it off, clearly unsettled by it’s presence. 

Dani’s hand moves from the side of Jamie’s face, pulls the brunette’s grip away from it with ease. ‘Leave it.’ Dani warns, her voice unusually firm and level. Her expression softens. ‘How’re you feeling?’ She asks, a little unsure of herself now. She doesn’t want to push Jamie to speak, but her heart is pounding, begging to hear the sound of Jamie’s voice, even for a second. 

Jamie blinks a few times, tries to ground herself amongst a haze of medication and pain. She’s anchoring herself in Dani’s eyes, tries to hold herself still, and its working, Dani’s holding her upright without even knowing she’s doing it, keeping her safe without even having to try. Its almost a completely foreign concept to Jamie, to feel so wholly at ease with someone, even in her current position. She drops her head to the side, so she’s eye to eye with Dani, chooses to ignore her question all together in favour of making an attempt to ease the terrified expression on Dani’s face. 

‘Have you been sat here all night?’ Jamie notes the time on the clock over Dani’s shoulder, its 10:30am. She considers Dani’s wrinkled clothes, and the slight puffiness in her eyes from a lack of sleep. Dani’s cheeks flush slightly, and she’s wondering how even confined to a hospital bed, having just woken up from a coma, Jamie still manages to make her blush, still manages to activate the butterflies that had laid dormant in her stomach for hours now. Jamie’s smiling, and although its weak, it might just be the best thing Dani’s ever seen. Jamie catches the pink in Dani’s cheeks, feels her own heart flutter a little. ‘You have, haven’t you?’ She pushes. 

Dani averts her eyes for a moment, but she’s pulled back in like she always is. She shakes her head. ‘No, no… well, I just, I didn’t have anywhere else to be, and i-‘

‘So you just decided to what, sit by my bedside for hours while I slept? Wait for me to rejoin the land of the living?’ Jamie’s raising an eyebrow, and Dani’s given up on all hope of holding onto her dignity now. She gives in, lets an embarrassed smile slip onto her features and nods. Jamie’s own smile grows a little and she doesn’t break eye contact with Dani for even a second. ‘Miss Clayton, you flirt.’ 

Dani throws her a look of disapproval as Jamie’s grin fades and they fall into a full kind of silence, one that is thick with emotion, yet still gentle, still calm. Dani is still holding both of Jamie’s hands, and her eyes are fixed on the brunette, she refuses to look away even for a second, as though Jamie might disappear if she even gives the universe the slightest bit of leeway. Jamie watches, sees an ocean of fear that’s too great for Dani to even try to disguise. ‘Hey.’ Jamie starts, her voice is quiet, rough, and Dani almost cracks at the sound of it. ‘I’m all good.’ Dani’s shaking her head, and a tear escapes down her cheek. Jamie reaches up, wipes it away with her thumb. ‘Dani, it’s okay, I’m okay.’ 

‘No,’ Dani manages to choke out. ‘No it’s not, you’re not… Jamie, I thought, we thought….’ Her voice trails off, unable to finish her sentence. More tears threaten to spill, and Jamie can feel her hand losing strength, shaking against Dani’s face. She curses her body for supporting Dani’s words, for highlighting her own weakness. Dani takes hold of it, brings it back down to the mattress and intertwines their fingers together. ‘You got stabbed, Jamie, they had to take out your spleen… i-I was so scared.’ Her voice cracks, breaks in two and takes Jamie’s heart with it, and she can’t hold her tears back anymore. Guilt is welling up in the pit of Jamie’s stomach, over how they left things, over her attempt to protect Dani coming too little and too late, because despite all of her best efforts, here they were. 

Jamie exhales slowly, and for the first time since they first laid eyes on each other, Dani hears the air tremble as it leaves Jamie’s lips. ‘I know.’ She says, voice low, she pauses. ‘And you’re right.’ Jamie’s words struggle against each other, fighting against admitting any sort of vulnerability, against showing any kind of weakness. Dani’s still crying, her tears silent as they fall, and they’re not slowing down. Jamie wants to take Dani in her arms and hold her until she calms, wants to prove to her that she’s here, that she isn’t going anywhere, that she’s safe, but her body feels heavy and it wont cooperate. ‘Dani, breathe.’ She says, voice unwavering. ‘Look, I got a bit roughed up, yeah? but I’ll be okay. Everything is going to be fine, alright? I’m here.’ A playful smile creeps onto her face, and she thinks that maybe if she can just lighten the mood a little… ‘who needs a spleen, anyway?’ She says gently, and Dani nods reluctantly, wiping her eyes against her sleeve as she smiles through them, but Jamie’s still aware of her hands shaking and her lips quivering in a desperate fight against new tears.

For a short time, the two of them are covered in a soft quietness, Dani with her head resting against the mattress, cheek mushed against her forearm, as she traces patterns across Jamie’s palm, and Jamie’s eyes fluttering closed every few seconds as she fights stubbornly against sleep. 

The peacefulness is interrupted when Rebecca appears in the doorway, she’s changed into jeans and a beige turtleneck sweater, and she has a black jacket looped over her arm. She looks tired, but when she sees two faces looking up at her, she beams back, places her coat over the end of Jamie’s bed and walks the rest of the distances to her side. ‘Good morning, Miss Taylor.’ She greets Jamie. ‘It’s a pleasure to have you back with us.’ 

‘S’Jamie.’ Jamie responds quietly, following the woman’s movements cautiously as she busies herself by jotting something down on a clipboard. Dani notices that Jamie is much more tense in someone else’s presence, she’s unsure, almost suspicious, and when Rebecca reaches for her hand to check her pulse, Jamie flinches away from her. 

Rebecca isn’t phased by this, and there’s no judgement in her voice when she apologises to Jamie, explains what she’s going to do before attempting it again, asks her permission beforehand this time. ‘May I?’ Dani squeezes Jamie’s hand, communicates through the simple touch that its okay, that she can trust Rebecca, and this time Jamie lets the nurse work without protest. 

Once she’s done with her observations, Rebecca tells them that she’s heading out, but she’ll be back for the night shift and she’ll see them then. 

Dani follows her over to the door, meets her eyes. They stand in silence for a second as Dani sorts through a million different things she could say to express her gratitude. In the end she can’t put her thoughts into words, settles for pulling the other woman into a firm hug, whispering a thank you in her ear as she does so. Dani can only hope that all the emotion she feels, all the relief and appreciation, gets through to Rebecca in that moment, hopes that it conveys itself through her actions in place of her words. 

It does. 

‘Anytime.’ Rebecca smiles. With all the death, all the hopelessness that comes with her job, its all worth it for moments like these, moments where her work makes a difference, a real, visible difference to even one person’s life. Dani can understand that feeling, too. 

When the door closes behind Rebecca, and Dani turns back to Jamie, it seems she’s lost her battle against exhalation, because her eyes have closed, and her chest rises and falls slowly, peacefully. Dani watches her for a moment, takes in the intricate curve of her features. She walks back over to Jamie, takes her place by her bedside and leans over to pick up the book she’s cast aside earlier. As she does, though, she jumps at the sound of Jamie’s voice. ‘Y’know,’ she starts, eyelids still resting shut. ‘I had the strangest dream… before…’ 

Dani cocks her head, watches as Jamie’s eyes finally open, just a crack. ‘Oh yeah?’ She asks, unsure of just how much of this is Jamie speaking, and how much is the morphine. Still, she’s intrigued.

‘Mhm…’ Jamie slurs in response, her words are blending together now. ‘Remind me… never t’let you make me a cuppa, Poppins.’ 

Then she’s out, her body taken over by a drug induced sleep. Dani’s eyebrow is still raised in question as she opens her book to the third chapter. 

‘Poppins…’ She repeats to herself in a mixture of confusion and amusement. ‘What the hell is a Poppins?’

//

It’s around 3 in the afternoon when Jamie stirs, readjusts herself into wakefulness. She’s actually quite grateful that her sleep had been a dreamless one, the kind of sleep that you wake up from and you don’t remember a single thing from it, like no time has passed at all. When the sleep has cleared from her eyes her initial instinct is to turn her head in the direction of where Dani had been sitting. Jamie isn’t surprised to find that she hasn’t moved, still holding up her book with one hand, the other resting on top of Jamie’s own. 

The small movement is enough to grab the blonde’s attention. ‘Hi sleepyhead.’ Dani says gently, greets Jamie with a soft smile, and brings Jamie’s hand to her lips before she presses a gentle kiss onto her knuckles. ‘How’re you feeling?’ 

Jamie pauses to consider this, not only because her thoughts are still scattered about her brain messily, but because, well nobody’s ever really asked her that before, not really. Sure she’d been asked the question in small talk, when she was chatting up a girl at a bar or when she was in a mandated appointment where the other person literally gets a pay-check for asking her how she is. Dani, though, is asking because she genuinely wants to know, because she cares enough about Jamie to listen, to want to hear the answer. Jamie’s never had that. For some reason, though, Jamie still can’t quite bring herself to answer seriously, settles for throwing Dani a quick wink. ‘All the better for seeing you, Miss C.’ She says, hopes Dani will let her off, but Jamie’s flirting isn’t enough to distract her from the initial intent 

‘Really, Jamie.’

Jamie rolls her eyes, moves her eye line to the ceiling and fixes it there. ‘Shite,’ she starts vaguely, ‘but I’ll live.’ She shuffles a little, tries and fails to hide the grimace across her face as a sharp pain shoots through her stomach. As soon as it comes, though, the painkillers work their way around her body, fixing her mistake for her. ‘The drugs aren’t half bad, though. If I’d known they’d be this easy on the morphine, I might have gone and got myself stabbed sooner.’ 

Dani doesn’t look best pleased at Jamie’s attempt at a joke, though, and she reminds herself that not everyone uses humour in quite the same way she does. Ever since she was a kid, Jamie’s go-to defence has always been to laugh it off. She’s always there, always ready to jump in with a joke before someone else could make it for her. Its easier to be the punchline when you’re the one making the joke. Always better that they’re laughing with her instead of at her, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, joint ‘em’ and all that. That’s how she had survived as a kid, how she managed to get through the bullying, the constant torment, and when you’ve been doing something for so long its not easy to break that habit. ‘Rebecca said they’ll be keeping you in here for at least a week, and then… you can request to be put into protection, they recommend-‘

Jamie shifts uncomfortably at that, knows that getting put into protective custody is just like being in solitary, knows that that would mean giving up the only things that keep her sane in here. Her gardens, and Dani’s lessons, her daily conversations with Owen. It almost feels like just as much of a death sentence as going back to her usual cell would be. ‘I dunno, Dani.’ She says, tries to keep any emotion from creeping into her voice. ‘It’s a lonely place, is solitary.’

Dani sighs, she can’t pretend to understand how difficult this is for Jamie, how soon she’s going to be forced to choose between her safety and her sanity, knows there’s to a way around this where everyone wins. ‘I’ve heard.’ She says, smiles sadly. ‘But this is your life, we’re talking about, Jamie.’ 

Jamie’s eyes start to fill with tears and she turns her head to the ceiling on instinct, her reflexes working in overdrive to hide any sign of weakness, Dani can’t escape the flume of guilt that rises in her chest. ‘Okay,’ she starts, the seriousness in her tone is now hand in hand with a delicate softness. ‘Okay, we don’t have to think about that right now.’ She stands from the plastic chair, moves so that she’s perched on the edge of the bed, looking down into Jamie’s eyes. ‘Just concentrate on getting better first, the rest can wait.’

Jamie knows that the tears that are brimming are a combination of all of the pain, fear, exhaustion, guilt that has wracked her for the last few days, is well aware that Dani’s suggestion was just what pushed her body over the edge. She nods slowly, swallows back the lump in her throat and takes a steadying breath. ‘Right, yeah, okay.’ She agrees, finally allowing Dani’s form to drift back into view. She pauses, sweeps over Dani’s features. ‘I’m sorry.’

Dani shakes her head, picks up both of Jamie’s hands, mirrors the movements Jamie had made in the classroom days ago. ‘There is nothing to be sorry for.’

‘Yeah, there is.’ Jamie insists. ‘The other day, I was trying to protect you… to save you the trouble of worrying, of all this.’ She looks down at herself, and back up to Dani. The blonde is listening intently, tilts her head as Jamie speaks, squeezes her hand carefully. ‘People die in here, people die in here every day, Dani. That’s just how it is, and you deserve… you deserve somebody who’ll be around for you, for the next sixty years, someone who can promise you tomorrow.’

‘Jamie.’ Dani unhooks one of their hands, brushes Jamie’s messy curls back from her forehead. ‘No one can promise tomorrow.’ She runs her thumb across Jamie’s cheek. ‘One day at a time, okay? As long as those days are with you… then that’s enough for me.’

Jamie’s struggling to juggle this amount of feeling, stunned into awe by Dani’s level of understanding, by the sheer truth in her words. She wants to tell Dani that she’s not worthy of any of this, that she’s not worthy of her. She wants to tell Dani that despite her best efforts, despite all of her attempts to put a stop to this, to them, Jamie is falling, she’s falling hard and every second spent with Dani only confirms it further. If Jamie’s mind wasn’t so clouded over with painkillers, held back with fear and uncertainty, she might have said just that, but instead she reaches up, places her hands on both sides of Dani’s face and pulls her down towards her. She aligns their features with one another, pushes her tongue in between Dani’s lips. ‘Jamie…’ Dani practically moans into the brunette’s lips, reluctantly pulls back, just far enough to look into Jamie’s eyes, they’re tired, glassy with medication and pain, but they shimmer, reflection glittering back at her. ‘Jamie... I don’t want to hurt you.’

Jamie’s closing the space between them again, pulls Dani back against her lips and brushes them together. ‘Bit late for that.’ She murmurs, smiling as she kisses Dani again. 

It doesn’t take long for Dani to see that Jamie is losing strength, breaks away from the kiss and rests her forehead against Jamie’s, keeps her eyes closed for a moment before she forces herself upright. ‘Rest, okay?’ Her voice is barely a whisper, breathes out slowly as she speaks. She’s running her hand through Jamie’s hair, her fingers finding their way through dark brown locks, come to rest against Jamie’s jawline and sweep over it. The blonde leans in again, careful to avoid any wires and IV lines. She lets her lips fall against Jamie’s once more, grazes them against each other a final time before she pulls away. ‘I’ll be right here.’

Jamie lets her body takeover, lets her eyelids fall closed against the same scent of lavender she’d woken up to earlier that day, listens to the sound of the pages turning as Dani busies herself with a lesson plan for tomorrow’s class. Sleep takes hold quickly once she lets it in, content in the knowledge that when she wakes, Dani will be right where she left her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call this one an apology for all the angst, have some fluff besties!!


	10. easy access

Dani can’t get out of the classroom fast enough, doesn’t even wait for the last student to disappear from view before she shoves a pile of essays into her backpack, flings it over her shoulder as she stands up from her desk and all but sprints out of the door. She’d tried to convince Jamie that she could cancel, that if she needed her to stay they could manage without her for a day, find a substitute or something, but Jamie had had none of it, promised she’d be okay. ‘I’ve spent the last 22 years alone, Miss Clayton, I think I can handle a couple of hours.’ She’d insisted, held up her pinky to highlight her point. 

So Dani had complied, reluctantly to say the least. She’d stopped by the kitchen on the way, asked Owen to check in on Jamie if he had a second. He had agreed, of course, tried to reassure her. ‘Jamie’s a tough cookie, you know, she can handle herself.’ Dani had just nodded absently in reply. She knows Jamie is ten times as strong as she’ll ever be, knows that in reality four hours without Dani at her side won’t kill her, but she can’t help but think that the last time she left her alone, the last time Jamie was out of her sight, she quite literally almost ended up dead. 

Dani’s speed walking along the hall, navigates her way around the building easily now. She feels like she could find the infirmary with her eyes closed, like she’s being dragged towards it by the mystical magnetic force of lesbianism, or something like that. 

It seems to take her a lifetime to get there, though, to reach the last set of double doors before she can see for herself that Jamie’s okay, can silence the anxieties flying around her mind relentlessly. When she reaches Jamie’s room, Dani’s already smiling to herself, opens the door a little hesitantly to see Jamie sitting up in bed against the pillow, a travel mug between her hands containing what Dani presumes is tea. ‘Alright, Miss C.’ She greets the teacher. ‘See, I told ya I’d be alive when you got back.’

‘I don’t know,’ Owen chimes in. ‘The way she was knocked out when I got here… could’ve fooled me.’

Jamie pulls a face, faking offence. ‘Oi, I’m not well, you’ve got to be nice to me.’ She leans over and bats his arm playfully, but the movement’s too fast for her, and she’s punished for it, sucks in a breath between her teeth, tries to hide the tears that prick her eyes at the sudden, sharp discomfort in her stomach. 

Dani places a hand on her shoulder, steadies her as she squeezes her eyes together in pain. ‘Take it easy.’ She warns, stern, but gentle, a tone she reserves only for Jamie. She moves her hand down Jamie’s arm, stops at her elbow where the sleeves of her hospital gown stop, runs her thumb over Jamie’s bare skin slowly until the brunette gathers herself with some help from the morphine. Jamie opens her eyes, meets Dani’s. ‘Hi.’ The teacher says gently, realising she hasn’t had a chance to greet Jamie yet. 

Owen watches the interaction, the two of them seem to forget themselves for a second, and Owen takes it in, stunned into silence. He lets the moment play out a little longer before he clears his throat dramatically, wiggles his eyebrows as the women break eye contact and turn, throw him identical playful glares. ‘Haven’t you got convicts to feed?’ Jamie glowers with a smirk. ‘If they find out you’ve been skiving to babysit me… God forbid.’ Jamie’s joking, of course, but Dani still feels her heart skip a little at the thought of the other inmates having anymore reason to want to get at Jamie. 

Owen laughs, stands and takes his jacket from the back of his seat. ‘Yeah, I best be off.’ He says as he straightens out his apron, checks his watch. ‘Almost feeding time at the zoo.’ He jokes. He looks down warmly at Jamie, who’s hand has already found it\s way into Dani’s, the blonde having taken a seat on the side of the mattress, she couldn’t get closer to Jamie if she’d tried. Owen’s a little embarrassed to admit it, but besides Hannah, the two of them are his best friends, and he’s just thankful they’re both okay. His expression is sincere as he reaches over, ruffles Jamie’s curls. ‘I’m really glad you’re okay.’ He rests his hand on her shoulder.

Jamie’s looking up at him, understanding the emotion behind his simple statement. ‘Me too.’ 

There’s a beat, before Owen retracts his hand and they say their goodbyes. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He calls from the doorway, throws them a final grin as he waves. 

\\\

‘You’ve been here for three nights straight, Dani, you have to go get some sleep, and have a bloody shower, while you’re at it.’ 

Jamie’s trying to convince Dani to leave the prison, to go home with with Owen who’d shown up on his break with a cup of tea and a pack of custard creams for Jamie, told Dani he’d be back after shift to pick her up if she wanted a lift home.

As much as she loves having Dani here, loves the constant presence of a hand in hers and the gentle smile that meets her eyes every time she opens them. It’s comforting to have Dani at her side, to know that even if she wakes up, still panicking from a nightmare or shifts in the wrong way, catches herself off guard with a wave of nausea and pain, that Dani’s there to hold her, to loop her fingers through her hair, remind her that this’ll pass, that everything’s going to be okay. But Dani’s been sleeping in a plastic chair with a spare pillow and blanket Rebecca had smuggled in, snubbed from an abandoned supply closet. She’s been hunched at Jamie’s side for hours on end, hasn’t even left the building in days, now. 

‘I can sleep here.’ Dani persists stubbornly, arms folded, chin stuck out a little.

Jamie scoffs, shakes her head. ‘I mean in a bed, Dani, a proper bed, before your back gives out on you.’ Dani fixes her gaze on the blank wall, looks over Jamie’s shoulder and avoids eye contact, knows that Jamie could convince her to do anything she liked if she tried hard enough. Jamie pulls a face anyway. ‘And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?’

The thought of leaving Jamie makes Dani’s stomach roll over, makes her palms sweat a little and her mind race. Thinking rationally, she knows nothing will happen, the inmate who hurt Jamie’s been moved to a different facility, a prison with higher security, knows that the rest of the gang have been put into solitary because Owen had promised her, assured her. Jamie had been asked if she wanted to press charges, that she could get them done for attempted murder if she really wanted, but despite Dani’s badgering, she’d refused. Said it would cause more trouble than its worth anyway, and they’d probably get done for assault at best, when it’s all said and done. ‘I’m no grass, Dani.’ She’d insisted, told Dani that the decision was already made, and that was that. 

Even with the knowledge that Jamie is safe, for now, anyway, Dani can’t seem to shake off her fears. Not only that, but she’s found that in reality, she doesn’t want to. Leaving Jamie means leaving the warmth in her stomach whenever she looks over at her, means she can’t watch as her chest rises and falls as she sleeps, make sure she’s definitely still breathing whenever her anxiety tries to convince her otherwise. She’s become so accustomed to the steady beep of the heart monitor, to the whirring of the machines that meant Jamie was still okay, still here. Jamie searches Dani’s expression, sees the genuine nervousness and uncertainty, and her own features soften. ‘Seriously, Miss Clayton,’ she starts, takes Dani’s hand and squeezes it. ‘You heard Rebecca, I’m recovering at a ‘very satisfying rate.’’ She mimics Rebecca’s accent, straightens and puffs out her chest in an overdramatised impression of the nurse’s proper posture. Dani giggles, can’t hide the smile creeping onto her face. Jamie feels her heart flutter at the sound of Dani’s laugh, she fucking loves it, and god if she didn’t still have a fresh stab wound to the abdomen… ‘Don’t even need that annoying tube thing they had shoved up my nose anymore.’ She smiles. ‘They’ll be kicking me out of here soon.’ Jamie’s head is tilted as she speaks, coupled with that flirty smug grin that Dani has a good mind to wipe straight off her face. ‘I’m alright, and as much as I love having you here, you’re starting to stink the place out, go home, Dani.’

‘I know, I just… I like to be able to see that for myself, y’know?’ She looks down, a little embarrassed at her own uneasiness. ‘Plus…’ she looks back up at Jamie, meets her eyes again. ‘I’ll miss you.’

Jamie nearly melts at that, her tough exterior fading further and further out of view every second she stares back at Dani, every word she hangs on. ‘I’ll miss you, too.’ She says with a little more emotion in her voice than she’d initially intended. ‘But I’m not exactly going anywhere, am i?’ She gestures at her current position, she’s leaned heavily on the pillows, and various equipment is still running in and out of her like spaghetti, ‘I’ll be here in the morning, just… waiting for my lover to return…’ she stares into the distance dramatically, the same playful smile still plastered on her face. 

‘You’re terrible.’ Dani comments, tries and fails to look unimpressed. 

Jamie moves her hand from where its resting on top of Dani’s, moves it slowly to the neckline of her blouse and drags it across the blonde’s exposed collarbone teasingly. ‘You love it.’ She hums in response, sees Dani’s fake look of disapproval disappear completely in favour of a knowing smile.

//

‘You promise you’ll be okay?’ 

Jamie lets out an exasperated sigh, throws her head back against the pillow, and runs a hand over her face. ‘Yes,’ she starts, looks back up at Dani as she stands above her, glancing between Jamie and the green numbers displayed on the screen above the bed. Jamie and Owen had joined forces, finally managed to coax Dani into getting her coat on, packing up any things she had lying around. Jamie catches Dani’s eye, ensures she’s listening, really listening. ‘I promise I will be okay.’ Dani is still holding her hand, her grip tightening by the second. Jamie pulls it to her lips, kisses it. ‘Stop worrying, yeah?’

Owen places a hand on Dani’s shoulder. ‘Rebecca has your number, and mine. If anything changes-‘

‘Which it won’t.’ Jamie interrupts.

Owen nods, repeats Jamie’s words and pauses before he continues. ‘-but IF it does, she’s given me her word that she’ll call us both, straight away.’ 

‘Right.’ Dani nods, takes a breath to steady herself. ‘Okay, okay.’ She’s trying to persuade herself to let go of Jamie’s hand, trying to trust what everyone’s telling her, what she knows rationally to be true, and yet for some reason, can’t accept. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Jamie, she trusts her more than she’s ever trusted anyone, despite the short time she’s known her. It isn’t Jamie she doesn’t trust, so much as the universe, or whatever it is that’s out there, that’s managed to ruin every good thing she’s ever had the second she looked the other way. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just being-‘

‘Realistic?’ Jamie says, a softness in her voice that almost takes Dani out there and then. ‘Look, I get it, I do.’ She continues, runs her thumb across Dani’s hand. ‘This is a dangerous place, and the last time you left me here alone…’ she pauses, and there’s a rare rawness to her words, a glimpse of her own fear, of her vulnerability. Jamie readjusts herself quickly, recovers from the momentary lapse in confidence. ‘A day at a time.’ She repeats the words Dani had said to her two days earlier. ‘As long as those days are with you, Miss Clayton, one day at a time is what we’ve got. It’s what everyone’s got, when you get down to it.’ 

Jamie’s intelligence amazes Dani sometimes, she has an understanding of the world that’s so far beyond her years, so mature for someone so young, it makes her a little sad, because Dani knows from experience exactly where that level of knowledge comes from, she’s all too aware of that, of how Jamie has been forced to adapt, has had no choice but to adjust to things kids shouldn’t have to adjust to. Jamie’s seen a lot in 22 years, that much is obvious, and it’s taken as much from her as its given. She smiles, of course Jamie would use her own words against her, knows Dani can’t argue against that. ‘You’re right.’ Dani says, lets Jamie’s words wash over her, calm her. She leans in, lips flutter against Jamie’s forehead, ‘You’re right.’she repeats, more sure this time.

Jamie pulls her back in, places her own lips against Dani’s this time, presses them impossibly closer to one another. The kiss tastes like vanilla, and its just as gentle as ever. Jamie doesn’t want to break it off, wants to lose herself this deep within it for the rest of her life, but she knows Dani won’t be the one to move away, so she pulls back, waits for Dani to meet her gaze as she tucks a piece of blonde hair behind the teacher’s ear. ‘Goodnight.’ She says gently, smile widening. ‘Just goodnight.’

Dani nods, blinks slowly. ‘Okay.’ She responds, voice barely audible. She smiles back reluctantly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Owen picks up Dani’s bag for her, throws it over his shoulder. ‘Right then.’ He speaks up. ‘If you two are quite finished…’

Jamie rolls her eyes. ‘She’s all yours, Sharma.’

\\\ 

Dani is pleasantly surprised at Owen’s lack of teasing as they drive home, lulls her into a false sense of security as he hums along to the radio. It turns out he’s just been saving himself for the evening, though, and Dani curses herself for even hoping she might have gotten out of it.

‘So…’ Owen starts as he hands Dani a glass he’s filled with wine. ‘You and Jamie seem to be getting along… well.’ He hands Hannah the glass in his other hand, takes a seat beside her. His arm falls around her subconsciously, the other resting gently on her knee. He’s trying to get something out of Dani, an admission, or maybe he’s just adamant on humiliating her every time he opens his mouth. ‘Very well, in fact.’

Hannah nudges him with her elbow, rolls her eyes and scoffs at his immature teasing. ‘Oh for goodness sake, Owen, leave the poor girl alone, will you!?’ She turns back to Dani. ‘Ignore him, love, he’s such a wind up merchant, sometimes.’

Dani laughs, shakes her head. ‘It’s okay.’ She brushes it off. She’s used to Owen’s jokes, besides. He had just watched her smooch one of her students, one of the inmates at the prison they both work at, and stood by silently as he let it play out. She feels her face heating up, though, suddenly realising just how inappropriate that sounds. She’s scrambling for a response. ‘She’s… Jamie’s sick, she’s… I was just, erm… taking care of her.’

God how had she managed to make this worse for herself. Owen’s eyes are wide, full of amusement, and even Hannah sips her drink, waits expectantly for just how Dani plans on getting out of this one. She’d tried to give the girl an out, and Dani is just now realising that she should’ve taken it. ‘What, by administering mouth to mouth resuscitation?’ Owen smirks, laughs smugly, points an accusing finger at Dani, watches as she buries her face in her hands. He turns to Hannah, far too pleased with himself to let this go. ‘You should’ve seen the pair of them, practically swallowed each other whole right in front of me!’

‘Now you’re just over exaggerating.’ Dani deadpans, grasping at straws to defend herself. She almost wants to tell him how tame that kiss really was in comparison to the one they’d shared in her classroom, about just how much she had actually refrained herself. ‘We barely even touched each other.’ 

‘Mhm.’ Owen nods sarcastically, takes a sip of his wine as the laughter dies down.

// 

The room feels bigger without Dani here, especially when the lights go out. Jamie’s used to her own company, and she’s always said she likes it that way, being alone meant she wasn’t responsible for anyone but herself, meant she didn’t have to entertain, meant she could do as she pleased without a second thought. Now, though, she’s starting to think that maybe she’d only lived that way because she’d had to. She had accepted from a young age that this was her reality, and besides, she’d never had someone she actually wanted to be around every second of everyday, more than wanted, needed. She needs Dani, needs to touch her, to sit in her presence or to throw her against a wall and rail the fuck out of her, either way, it’s a need not a want. 

The usual noise inside her head is quietened tonight, muffled to an irritating buzz to make way for soft lips, silk skin, blue eyes and blonde hair and the arch of her hips as she allows herself to indulge, really indulge in Dani. God.

She tries to distract herself, picks up the shitty old book Dani has been engrossed in, the one she’d caught the woman reading every time she had slowly adjusted into wakefulness, before Dani had clocked that her eyes were open, and resting delicately on the her. She’s careful not to dislodge the scrap of paper Dani’s using as a bookmark, flicks back until she finds the first page, scans the opening paragraph under the dull light beside her bed that’s left on for the nurses convenience. 

She gets to the third sentence before her thoughts are tugged away again, she’s thinking about how if anybody else had recommended this bullshit to her, she wouldn’t have given it a second look, but she wants to know Dani, wants to understand every detail of her and if that meant reading a book from the bloody Stone Age then so be it. Jamie has come to realise that she’d do a lot for Dani, runs through all the things she’d do for her in her mind, and all the things she’d do to her, as well.

Jamie sighs, because somehow her innocent attempt to distract herself from the feel of her bare skin pressed against Dani’s, from the image of her fingers as they slip inside her, has lead her straight back to where she started. Jamie places the book on the shelf beside the bed, moves her hand steadily downwards until its under the blankets. 

She’d tried, she really had.

If there’s one positive about the questionable attire of the light grey hospital gown, it’s that it doesn’t half allow for easy access. 

Jamie lets her hand slip beneath the hem, finds the top of her pants and lets the feeling of Dani’s tongue between her lips ease in as she rubs small circles on her clit, finally slips two fingers inside herself and it feels fucking brilliant, almost magical, actually.

Jamie hadn’t gone this long without tending to her needs for as long as she can remember, seems getting stabbed doesn’t do wonders for your libido, but she notices that this time it feels so much better, so much more real, and she’s working her way around the inside of her clit now, wishes it was Dani’s fingers and not her own, but this’ll have to do the job for now, and fucking hell is that job done. She lets a moan of comfort fall from her lips, low and careful because she’s all too aware that some of the nights staff here don’t seem to understand the concept of knocking. She hums in pleasure, quite pleased with work actually. It’s a shame Dani isn’t here to see it, to experience it.

Jamie’s head falls back against the pillow and she brings her hand back up from beneath the blankets, sights contentedly, and she thinks maybe now her body will allow her to at least try and get some kip, but just as she closes her eyes, lets the medication start to pull her in, the door creeks open and a nurse walks into the room. 

‘Ah, you’re still up.’ The young woman states, and Jamie bites back a sarcastic reply. The nurse walks over to her. ‘Just need to check your stats!’ She says brightly, 

Perfect.


	11. lightbulb moment

Jamie’s woken up by Rebecca bursting into her room. Her eyes snap open and she pushes herself subconsciously up into a defensive position. Winces, hisses, whispers a string of angry curses at herself. ‘Does nobody in this shit-hole understand the concept of knocking!?’ She groans once she’s managed to get her breath back, rubs a hand across her eyes before she finally meets Rebecca’s eyes and knows something’s wrong. ‘What?’ She asks, her tone switching from frustration to concern. Rebecca’s making her way over to Jamie, takes a seat on the side of the mattress. Her expression is apologetic, like she’s regretting the words she hasn’t even said yet. Jamie tits her head. ‘What is it, Rebeccas, you’re making me nervous here.’ She’s trying to sound unbothered, covers her uncertainty with a forced smile. 

‘I’m sorry, Jamie.’ She starts, hand resting on Jamie’s shoulder. ‘There’s a critical patient being transferred back over from the hospital, but we’ve got no beds free, and you’re the most stable patient we have.’ Jamie’s slotting the pieces into place as Rebecca speaks, and she’s not liking the picture she’s forming. ‘I tried to argue that you still need to be here, but they’ve thought of everything.’ She looks genuinely sorry, and Jamie knows its not her fault, knows Rebecca doesn’t have a say in this, despite her position. ‘They’re going to have me check in on you twice a day, administer your medications, check your dressing, but you’re not well enough to go back into general population, Jamie.’ She sighs. ‘You still need regular pain relief and antibiotics, and if your incision gets knocked, even by mistake, your stitches could rip.’

Jamie shakes her head. ‘I’ll be careful.’ She starts to protest, and her voice is a little too desperate for her own liking. ‘Come on, I can’t go into solitary, I can’t.’ She’s panicking internally, but she’s good at hiding her fear with a level voice and lips forced into a straight line. 

‘I came to let you know, to give you a little warning before they come to take you up.’ Jamie’s looking in the other direction, turns her head away from Rebecca in case she loses her cool, incase she cracks. If there’s one thing that Jamie hates, hates with the passion of a thousand suns, its losing control. Losing control of a situation, of her emotions, of herself. She fucking hates it, and being in prison, that’s the one thing they starve you of, they take every last drop of it and drain it from you until you have nothing left, nothing to hold onto. ‘They’ll be down in a couple of hours, I really am sorry, Jamie.’

Jamie just nods, doesn’t waver from the blank expression she’s painted on to cover her back, stays silent when Rebecca squeezes her shoulder, stands and makes her way over to the door, but just as she’s about to pull it open, Jamie calls her name. ‘Will you phone Dani, let her know for me, yeah?’ Her eyes are still firmly planted on the wall. ‘She’ll only bloody panic, get herself into a state.’ 

Rebecca nods. ‘Of course I will.’

//

Owen jerks awake to a pounding at his door, a consistent knocking that don’t relent even for a second. He shifts his eyes from the alarm clock on the bedside table over to Hannah, who’s still flat out beside him. If it wasn’t for the persistence of whoever’s so adamant on knocking his door down at seven in the morning, he might have let himself bask in his wife’s sleeping form for a little longer as she breathes steady, peaceful, but the knocking is only getting louder, and Owen has no choice but to grab his glasses from where he always left them beside the alarm clock, slide them onto his face and swing his legs over the side of the bed. 

‘Alright, bloody hell, I’m coming!’ He exclaims as he nears the door frame, takes a quick look through the peephole, seeing tussled blonde hair and blue eyes, a little frantic. He unlocks the door, slides open the latch and opens it to reveal Dani, shifting from her left to her right foot, twisting a piece of hair around her thumb restlessly. She’s still in her pink silk pyjamas, lilac dressing gown he and Hannah had bought her as a Christmas present wrapped around her front. He’s looking her up and down, confusion all over his face, still a little stunned from his sudden wake up call. ‘Dani, what-‘

‘They’re taking Jamie.’ She blurts out, tucks her thumb between her teeth. 

Owen cocks an eyebrow at what seems to be a very vague explanation as to why Dani’s standing at his door, an hour and a half before they need to set off for work, fully clad in her pyjamas, running a hand through her hair in her panic. ‘What?’ He asks simply, still a little too taken aback to say much else.

Dani stops her pacing, stands still and tries to collect herself enough to form at least a coherent sentence. ‘Rebecca called.’ She starts. ‘To tell me that they’re moving Jamie up to solitary in a couple of hours. Something about needing the bed, and Jamie being the most stable patient they have, and… she doesn’t want to be in solitary, Owen, it’ll kill her being away from the garden, being so isolated…’ she trails off, starting to feel herself getting a little teary at the thought of Jamie being forced into something she’s been so against, at the thought of her being scared, being alone. She knows that Jamie will be playing it tough, pretending she doesn’t care when in reality it’s ripping her apart inside. She feels so powerless, wishes there was something, anything, she could do to help. It’s then that she realises how pathetic this is, standing at Owen’s door, waking him up like a child who’d had a bad dream, knocking on their parents’ door for comfort. ‘I am so sorry.’ She apologises. ‘I shouldn’t have, I don’t know why I-‘

Owen doesn’t say anything, just steps aside as he opens the door all the way and motions for her to come inside. Dani stands still for a moment, finally stops her rambling, a break in her racing thoughts. She follows Owen inside and shuts the door behind her. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ He states, more to himself than to Dani, but she nods anyway, takes a seat on the edge of the couch as Owen heads into the kitchen. 

//

By the time they arrive at the prison, Dani has almost completely calmed down, having spoken with Owen, and Hannah who had woken to the sound of the kettle boiling, and Dani’s voice, out of place in their apartment at such an early hour. They’d combed through various scenarios, solutions that might allow Jamie to stay in the infirmary for at least long enough so that she’s recovered to a point where she can go back to her usual cell, so she can hold onto some form of normalcy. In the end, they’d come up empty, but it was Hannah who’d had the breakthrough, who’s lightbulb moment had allowed for a glimmer of hope to find its way into Dani’s mind, to quell the wildfire of worry, just a little. 

Jamie had signed up to take a class, to get an education. The offer hadn’t been extended to any inmates who weren’t a part of general population, but Jamie wasn’t in isolation when she signed up, and she hadn’t been put there out of her own doing, wasn’t there as a punishment, but for her own protection, and the prison still owe her what they’d promised her, surely. It’s still a long shot, but If Dani agrees to work the overtime without pay, agrees to tutor Jamie one to one, at least until she’s well enough to get back downstairs, to attend classes herself, then they really have no reason to disagree with the idea. 

She’s planning her speech all morning, planning on what she’ll say when she struts into the manager’s office without an appointment, proposes her plan before anyone even has a chance to try and stop her. She’s got it all written down, but she knows she won’t need it, knows exactly what she’ll say, and she does. 

Head high, chest stuck out, hands on hips. Firm, simple, practically spells it out for them. Dani’s generally quite a jittery person, generally doesn’t do well under pressure because her nerves have a nasty way of sneaking in, taking hold before she can reign them in. She knows, though, that when she needs to, when it matters, she can come through, can pull herself together for the people she cares about and put on a damn good show to get what she wants. When she’s gone over every query, every ‘but’ and ‘what if’ they throw at her, and bounced them back a solution, or an explanation, she gathers her backpack from the floor, stands from her chair on the opposite side of the managers desk. ‘So, what d’ya say, Eric?’

The two men she’s been talking at for the past half hour exchange a glance, aside from a little confusion, a little suspicion as to just why the teacher is willing to go this far for one inmate, for one piece of scum off the bottom of their shiny black shoes, they come up empty. The man in charge nods, pushes the paper she’d handed him when she’d first waltzed in unannounced back across the desk towards her. ‘And to be clear, you wont be receiving any extra pay for this.’ He’s covering his arse, but Dani doesn’t care, the money doesn’t even come into it, Jamie is all she needs.

She shakes her head. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then I can’t see why not.’ He concludes, flashes a last look at his deputy who nods in agreement. 

Dani practically beams. ‘Thank you.’ She says, keeps her tone level and professional until she’s left the office, jogs halfway down the hallway to wear Owen is waiting, leant against a wall with his hands in his pockets as she approaches. He doesn’t need to ask how it went, because Dani’s eyes are practically gleaming, popping out of place in excitement, cheeks glowing with relief. She holds her thumbs up as a confirmation and Owen matches her facial expression, puts an arm around her shoulder as they start to walk the rest of the way down the corridor. ‘I start after lunch.’ She says. 

‘That soon?’ 

Dani nods. ‘Yeah, I figured there’s no point in waiting, right? I’ll grab a sandwich or something, then I’ll head up.’ 

Owen nods, insists on taking her to the kitchen, making her his personal favourite, a Sharma twist on a BLT, he says, practically forces the thing onto her. 

Dani polishes it off, thanks him, for everything, as she gathers her things, gets ready for her new afternoon class, and she can barely contain herself for it. 

//

Jamie insists on walking, says she’d rather walk up seven flights of stairs with two broken legs than sit in that monstrosity. Rebecca tries every trick in the book to get her to give in, to take the wheelchair she’s offered. ‘It’s just a formality, Jamie.’ She’s practically pleading, knows from years of experience that walking the few minutes from the infirmary to her cell in solitary is going to cause her far more pain than its worth. That girl and her stubbornness, it’ll be the death of Rebecca one day, and probably Jamie, too. 

In the end, Rebecca had folded, agreed that as long as they took the lift, rather than the stairs, as long as Jamie took it slowly, carefully, then she could walk, if she really had to. 

Although she’d never admit it, by the time they’d rounded the second corner Jamie was cursing herself for her pride, for her inability to accept help or admit weakness, because she felt like her whole body was about to give out on her, felt like her stomach was about to rip open there and then, spill its contents all over the shiny tiled floors of the hallway. There’s an officer accompanying them, but Rebecca had stuck to her guns when he’d tried to cuff her, tried to man handle her along the corridor as soon as they left the med room. ‘You’re already putting this inmate at significant risk by transporting her before she’s ready, I suggest you let me handle the rest.’ The man’s mumbled curses didn’t go unnoticed by Rebecca, but she ignored them anyway, turned her attention to Jamie, offered her a steadying arm, as she adapted to her newfound upright position. ‘Easy.’ Rebecca soothes, watches sympathetically as the little colour in Jamie’s cheeks drains altogether.

The poor girl shouldn’t even be out of bed, let alone walking. 

‘Alright, Becs,’ Jamie jokes, smiles through gritted teeth. ‘I’m not bloody dying, I can walk a few metres down the bastard hall without conking out.’ She’s trying to ease the guilt in Rebecca’s expression, knows the woman feels like shit that she can’t do anything about the move. But Jamie’s body is defying her words, refuses to cooperate with her attempt at easing the nurse’s worry. She’s swaying, feels the blood rushing to her head, fills it up making it light and heavy at the same time. She’s breathing heavy, but if there’s one thing Jamie will never be, it’s a fucking quitter. So she takes a moment to recollect her balance, to breathe through the dizziness, and gives herself another push. 

After a lot of grumbling, and Rebecca turning a blind eye to what seems like an endless stream of fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, shite, they make it to the elevator door. Jamie’s leaning heavily on Rebecca by now, but neither of them mention that. Jamie’s leaning against the railing as the elevator jerks, it’s not exactly a steady ride, and every movement brings new pain. If she wasn’t so distracted by that, the silence of the ride might have been awkward, but she didn’t have it in her to make a snide remark, or a lighthearted joke at her own expense to lighten the mood, so she just stared at the floor, concentrating on staying upright. 

It feels like they’ve had her run a marathon by the time Rebecca helps her lower herself onto the mattress, her whole body aching under the exertion of the journey. The nurse hands her two painkillers, an antibiotic, a glass of water to chase them down with. She tells Jamie that she’ll be up after dinner tonight, before her shift ends to make sure everything’s okay, advises that she gets some sleep if she can, once the painkillers kick in. 

Jamie takes her up on that offer, says her goodbyes and when she’s alone, lets out the breath she feels like she’s been holding all morning, berates herself for the way it quivers as it leaves her, at the tears in her eyes that she blinks away quickly. She knows she won’t be able to work in the gardens for a while, anyway, walking a few metres had almost done her in, and it’s not exactly light work, pulling weeds, potting plants, picking vegetables and loading them into crates. It’s not so much that that’s bothering her, she can survive for a little while without her plants, though she’s not entirely sure that the poor buggers will survive without her. She’s more concerned about Dani, knows that she’s been relying on the blonde to keep her together, leaning a little too heavily on her, if she’s honest. What’s worse is that she knows that Dani is relying on her, too. Sees the anxiety in Dani’s eyes whenever she has to leave. Dani is the kind of person who needs to see something for herself to believe it, can’t trust words in the way she can trust actions, and Jamie understands that. She wishes there was something she could do, to show Dani she’s okay – well, maybe okay is a stretch, she’s managing, at best. 

Jamie sighs, thanks her lucky stars for the fucker who invented pain relief, for it’s ability to pull her into a hazy sleep, even when her brain is so busy. She welcomes the sleep that’s falling around her, replacing her anxieties as it creeps further in, and before she knows it she’s all the way out, thrust into a dreamless sleep. 

//

When Jamie wakes, she;’s a little disorientated, takes in the difference in her surroundings, remembers herself. It takes her a second to realise what’s roused her from sleep, there’s a key turning in the lock of the door to her cell, and she glances at the plastic clock on the wall. Rebecca shouldn’t be back yet. She wonders if maybe they’re bringing dinner early, can’t think why else they’d be waking her up, and she’s pretty pissed about it, too if she’s honest. 

That is, until the door slowly creaks open, an officer appears first, holds it open for his companion. 

Jamie looks past him, has to blink a few times to make sure she’s not still dreaming, make sure she’s not hallucinating when her sleepy gaze meets Dani’s soft smile. ‘Wha-?’ She starts to ask, searches Dani’s eyes for an answer, but under the glare of the prison officer standing between them, she’s professional, expressionless, and Jamie didn’t know she had the ability to mask her emotions like this. She’s quite impressed, actually. 

‘Good afternoon, Miss Taylor.’ She’s got her teacher voice on, the one she uses to communicate with students that aren’t Jamie, the one she puts on in front of the rest of the class, the officers, but that falls away when they’re alone, when there’s just the two of them, and a calmness that feels completely and utterly theirs. ‘I heard about what happened, and I thought it would be against my duty as your teacher if you were to miss out on the education you were promised, through no fault of your own.’ She states, head high and avoiding Jamie’s gaze as she enters the room, places a pile of books down on the small desk to her right. 

‘I see.’ Jamie clicks, understands in that moment what Dani has done for her, for them, wants to pull her into her arms right there, because god is this woman bloody good. ‘That’s dedication, Miss Clayton.’ She grins, Dani might have to remain a professional under the shadow of the officers, but she sure as hell didn’t. 

To their relief, the PO excuses himself, clearly thinks he’s got better things to do than stand and watch Dani teach a one woman class about fractions. When the door finally clicks shut, Dani allows herself to turn towards Jamie, takes in her appearance, which is somehow worse than it had been the last time she saw her. She rationalises that its probably just the change, getting used to the new arrangement and having to transition onto oral painkillers, that, although strong, certainly weren’t quite as powerful as morphine. Jamie’s skin is a little clammy, dull, eyes slightly red and despite her attempt at that classic Jamie lopsided grin, there’s a pained expression across her features. 

‘Dani…’ Jamie starts, still in shock, still can’t quite wrap her head around the idea that Dani is here, with her, in person. ‘What did you-‘

Dani sits down on the side of the mattress beside Jamie. ‘Pulled a few strings.’ She smiles, clearly proud of herself for actually managing to stun Jamie into silence, for once. Her voice softens, sweep over Jamie’s form, still half covered by the raggedy blanket they’d provided her with. ‘Had to make sure you were okay.’ She brushes a few curls from Jamie’s forehead that had gotten stuck in place. ‘And it’s a good job I did, look at you…’ she trails off, voice full of sadness. What she’d give to wrap Jamie up and smuggle her out of here for good, to take her home and just hold her, hold her and kiss her and… other things, too. 

‘Thanks.’ Jamie scoffs, rolls her eyes in feigned offence. She places her hand on top of the one that Dani isn’t running through her hair, locks their fingers together against the mattress, and closes the little space between them. Dani’s expecting another joke, a jab at her own expense, anything to lighten the mood in true Jamie style. She’s surprised though, when Jamie just leans over, rests her head on Dani’s shoulder, murmurs a quiet ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ into the silence. Dani brings their joined hands to her lips, kisses Jamie’s knuckles, still threading her other hand through Jamie’s messy curls. Nobody’s ever done anything like this for her, nobody’s ever cared enough to go out of their way, to even think twice, until Dani.

‘Me too.’ Dani hums into Jamie’s hair, presses a kiss amongst it. She senses that Jamie just needs to be held right now, needs to be close, just for a little while, and that’s one thing Dani can do for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for 4K hits:)  
> As always let me know what you thought. <3


	12. a lesbian in a prison cell

When Jamie wakes, it’s under the brush of a delicate kiss to here forehead, the feel of a warm, soothing hand against her cheek. Green eyes flutter open and for the first time in a long time, the wildfire within them is calm, the frantic panic of leaving the silence of sleep is quiet, and she smiles. 

‘Poppins?’

Dani tilts her head, remembers the familiar shape of the word from days earlier, murmured halfway between consciousness and sleep, spoken with so much meaning, so much delicacy, and yet Dani had no clue what relevance it held. She’s seen the film, of course, read the book even before that. Mary Poppins had been one of her favourites as a little kid, she’d walk the six blocks to the library across town while her mom slept off a night on the wine, and her dad was… well, who knows where her dad was. Dani didn’t have much as a kid, as far as people go. She had Eddie, Mrs O’Mara, they were her family back then, despite how it all turned out in the end. Other than that, though, little Danielle Clayton was alone, for the most part. There was, however, one thing she did have, and always held onto, that was her books. As soon as she was old enough to read they became her safe haven, a place where she could escape from the constant drama that was her mother, and whichever guy she’d brought home from the bar that night. 

‘Sal’s just here to fix the toilet, Danielle.’ ‘Brian’s going to put some shelves up for us in the kitchen.’ 

Whatever was happening at home, Dani had her books. She’d read half of the library by the time she left for college, and it’s the one place she really misses when she thinks of home. A quiet place where she was free to drift off into the world of whichever character she wanted to, whenever she liked.

Still, as much as she loves the story, loves the character, Dani can’t seem to put her fingers on just why Jamie would be referring to her as ‘Poppins,’ and more than once now. Before she’s able to ask, though, Jamie speaks up again, her eyes cleared of sleep now, more alert, voice stronger. ‘So… I’m sorry I, uh, think I slept through class?’ She offers. Her lips twitch, and there’s that smirk again. Dani almost loses her mind at the sight of it, bites her lip in an attempt to hold back her body’s natural instincts. 

Not here, Dani, not now. The blonde wills herself silently, talks herself down in her head, but she never has been able to suppress a blush. 

Dani sighs, because god she could stay here forever, she wants to stay here forever. She’s perched on the edge of a mattress that may as well be made out of concrete, back aching from lack of movement, and she’s staring at these 4 same walls, confined to a 4 by 6 shoebox with a lidless metal toilet only metres from the bed, and she can’t think of anywhere else she wants to be. As long as she’s with Jamie, the circumstances don’t matter. The infirmary had been a privilege, and Rebecca had been a godsend, but it was always temporary, Jamie was always going to get shoved back into a cell and Dani’s plan, while brilliant, had its limits. Without Rebecca’s help, without the relative seclusion of the hospital wing, there’s only so much Dani can do, only so long she can stay before she’s herded out. The few hours they had for today were quickly coming to an end, and even though Jamie had slept through them, at least they were together, secure and content and close, hands threaded into one another and breaths even, taken in time. ‘I’ll let it slide, this time.’ She responds, matches Jamie’s playful grin, revels in the moment until it fades. ‘Sorry I woke you…’ her smile fades slowly. ‘I just wanted to say goodbye, before I go.’

Jamie pushes herself up onto her elbow so that her line of sight is level with Dani’s, quirks an eyebrow, and uses her free hand to tuck Dani’s hair behind her ear. ‘No worries.’ She looks Dani up and down, can almost feel the blonde tingling at the light action. ‘Plenty of worse ways to be woken up.’ 

‘Oh yeah?’ Dani hums, her hand moves subconsciously to Jamie’s hair, twists a curl around her finger. 

‘Yeah.’ Jamie repeats, her voice dips to a whisper, cracks as she speaks and Dani can’t hold herself back anymore. Her body quivers against Jamie’s, pleads to feel Jamie’s body against hers, longs to feel the hand currently resting against her cheek run all the way down her arm, trace the curve of her hip and find it’s way underneath her skirt. Their lips meet, and it’s as though the second they touch, they melt into each other completely, their bodies curving into one another involuntarily, falling into a familiar rhythm, moving together as though they’re morphed into a single being. Jamie bites Dani’s lip, and theres a gentle moan as the blonde pushes her tongue further into Jamie’s mouth. 

If their last kiss tasted like vanilla, soft, and cool, this one is cherry red, hot lips, desperation, panting and grasping for more of one another. ‘We...’ Dani pulls back, barely an inch, and only for a moment. ‘We shouldn’t… be doing this here…’

Jamie just hums, presses their lips back together and works her way around Dani’s mouth, allows her hand to move down Dani’s back until it slips under the hem of her shirt, finds her chest, caresses the soft skin of her breast. She moves slowly, carefully, leaves it open for dani to back off if she needs to, or wants to, but of course, Dani doesn’t. Dani would never. The touch draws her in, impossibly closer toward Jamie’s body, hands tangled in curls and hearts racing against each other in a furious plea for more. ‘Don’t stop.’ Dani utters into the kiss, breathy, any hint of hesitation completely consumed in the agonising need for Jamie, for every part of Jamie, to wrap it around her and bask in it, forever. 

Dani can feel her heartbeat in her head, the sound of her blood rushing as it heats up her cheeks, a warmth that spreads across her features, into her lips and into the kiss, the kiss that still hasn’t broken off, even as Jamie’s hand fumbles toward her waistband. 

Then there’s Rebecca. 

Standing in the doorway, mouth hanging open, eyes almost popping out of her head. She’s too stunned to form words, and if she’s honest, Dani’s grateful for that. She yanks herself out of the embrace, almost falls off the side of the bed in the process. Stands, sways a little, and for a second it looks like she might fall over. If her cheeks were red before, they’re crimson now, burning hot as her heart drops into her stomach. ‘I-I, I’m so… I’m, I should, uh- I’m going to go, I was… I was just going.’ She’s shoving textbooks into her backpack without even looking at what they are, knocks one on the floor in her fluster and bends to pick it up. As she stands, her head comes into contact with the corner of the desk, and she gasps a strangled ouch as she straightens, brushes off the sudden pain in her skull as she slings the backpack over her shoulder, hurries to grab her coat. ‘Owen, he’ll be- he’ll be waiting, I should go.’ She repeats herself between desperate rambles, rubs the side of her head, and bustles out of the room like a bull in a china shop – or in this case, a lesbian in a prison cell. ‘Goodnight Jamie- uh, Miss Taylor. Nurse Jessel.’ 

Rebecca’s gaze follows Dani as she bolts out of the room and down the corridor, still a little dazed by what she’d just walked in on, she turns back to Jamie. ‘Wow, well… wow.’ She struggles for words, closes the door behind her as she walks into the cell. 

Jamie doesn’t say anything, but her own cheeks are pink with embarrassment as she smiles down at the bedsheets, shakes her head and brings a hand to punch the bridge of her nose. 

Rebecca sets down the box of supples she’s brought up with her, clearly decides that defaulting into medical mode is her best option here, and perhaps her only one. She tells Jamie she’s going to do her observations, hands her her meds first, watches to make sure she swallows them down. The nurse goes over her numbers, pauses at her heart rate, notes that it’s raised. ‘I suppose that’s not surprising.’ She remarks, lips pursed together. Jamie’s trying desperately to read her, but she cant seem to deduce a single emotion. ‘Can you lie back for me while I check the area around your wound?’

Jamie complies, silently leans back against the pillow with a poorly disguised wince. Rebecca runs her hands over Jamie’s abdomen, asks her how much pain she feels in certain areas, confirms that, no. it doesn’t look infected, yes. It’s still healing nicely. Jamie nods, thanks her as she makes a few notes on her clipboard. 

After another moment, when the silence has almost completely deafened her and Jamie physically can’t handle another second of tension, she breaks through it. ‘I’m sorry you, erm, had to walk in on that.’ She’s looking at the wall, at anything but Rebecca. ‘We shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have…’ she trails off, because in reality she really doesn’t know what to say. She considers apologising for her behaviour, but she can’t bring herself to say sorry for something that felt so right, something that feels so right. ‘I-‘

Rebecca flicks the top of her pen, places it back into her pocket and stands. ‘You don’t owe me an explanation, Jamie.’ She says, her tone is a little sharp, but it’s genuine, kind, level. ‘But if I had been anyone else, you’d be having a very different conversation right now, just bare that in mind.’

‘Understood.’ Jamie nods, thanks whatever deity made Rebecca so understanding. She knows this could’ve ended a lot worse for her, for Dani. ‘Thank you.’

Rebecca just nods as she flips her clipboard back to the front page and picks up the box of equipment from the desk. ‘Just, be careful.’ She says as she reaches the door. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Get some rest.’

//

‘So, uh, have you heard from Rebecca, lately?’ 

Dani thanks the barista as she brings over two coffees, places one in front of her and the other in front of Hannah. It’s barely been twenty four hours since the incident, and rationally, Dani knows that she probably hasn’t, that Rebecca’s professional, that she isn’t the type to gossip, especially when it comes to work. She’s overreacting, way to paranoid about the whole thing. If Rebecca had told Hannah, if the other woman had known about what happened, surely she would’ve brought it up by now, on the walk over, or when Dani had arrived twenty minutes early at her neighbours apartment for their weekly coffee date, but Hannah hasn’t said a word about it, about the prison, or about Jamie, or the fact that she’d almost banged her in the middle of her freaking prison cell. 

Hannah shakes her head, looks confused. ‘Not since the other day, no. Why do you ask? Is everything okay with Jamie?’

Dani nods quickly, a little too quickly, turns her attention to her coffee, prays that the clink of the teaspoon will somehow drown out Hannah’s waiting gaze as she takes a sip of her own drink. ‘No, no, I mean, yes. Jamie’s fine.’ She removes the teaspoon from her mug and takes a sip. In order to buy herself an extra few seconds. ‘I was just wonderin’ y’know, you guys are friends, and friends, they talk to each other, tell each other stuff, and-‘

‘Oh.’ Hannah’s eyes widen, burn a whole into Dani and she couldn’t escape them if she tried. ‘Dani Clayton…’ her voice is thick with amusement at her sudden realisation. It’s times like this that Dani can see so clearly how perfect Hannah and Owen really are for one another, sees that a person doesn’t go years of living with Owen Sharma, and not develop a perfect knack for teasing, for persuading a confession out of someone with a single look or word, or action. ‘She did not walk in on you and the missus, now did she?’ Its less of a question, more of a statement, and Dani squirms further into her humiliation. ‘God, the poor girl…’

It’s pointless to try and hide it, her face says a thousand words, always has. ‘I didn’t mean-‘ she quickly realises that there’s also no use in denying, or explaining herself either, not to Hannah, anyway. ‘And Jamie’s not my ‘missus.’’ Dani exaggerates Hannah’s British accent on the last word, makes quotation marks out of her fingers. ‘We’re just…’ she trails off, because she doesn’t actually know what Jamie is. More than a friend, that’s for sure, but they haven’t even had the discussion yet, haven’t had the time to even consider labels, to talk about any of this, really. The practicality of it all, the obstacles that they face, have faced, and will likely continue to face. ‘She’s just Jamie.’

‘Ah, say no more, then.’ Hannah scoffs sarcastically. Goes back to her coffee, and unwraps the pack of ginger biscuits that’d come with it. ‘Biscuit?’ She asks as she takes a bite. 

//

‘Jamie, your body is still dealing with what happened. You went through something traumatic, its completely normal for you to be on edge, I’d be worried if you weren’t. Our brain uses dreams as a way of processing what we can’t when we’re awake, these nightmares returning, its not surprising.’

Tamara is relentless. She’s like a dog with a bone, and as much as it infuriates Jamie most of the time, really gets on her last nerve, she’s found that the psychologist always seems to be right. She’s been seeing her for a little over nine months, once a week, it’s mandatory, and if she’s honest, Jamie only cooperates because her trip to the therapist’s office offers her a little break in the continuity. As much as she’d like to, though, she can’t deny that everything Tamara has said, every coping skill she’d suggested and every explanation she’d provided in spite of Jamie’s initial protests, had turned out to be completely accurate. 

Jamie shifts, leans against the wall behind her bed. Tamara had been sent to her cell instead of Jamie having to make the trip downstairs, and it was a little unnerving having her so close. ‘Right, only these aren’t like the usual shit.’ She struggles to find the words, to explain this right. ‘Those nightmares, they start the same, end the same, no matter what happens in the middle. I’m always the one being attacked, being hunted down, and I can deal with that, I’ve learned to deal with it. But these dreams, they don’t even start out like a nightmare, they start out like the opposite of a nightmare, really. It’s like they lure me into this false sense of security, and then when they turn, It’s not me who’s at risk, never me who’s in danger. I just have to sit there and watch it all fucking happen, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ She sighs, hates how Tamara just has this ability to force her thoughts out of her, spill them all over the bloody place.‘I can’t save her.’

‘Who?’

Jamie raises an eyebrow, her words had escaped her lips faster than her brain could keep up with them, and she’s only just now realising her mistake. ‘I can’t save her.’ She repeats in her mind. Her.

Tamra watches her intently, flicks a pen around in her hand as she does so. ‘You said, it isn’t you who’s in danger in these new nightmares, so who is it?’

There’s a pause, a long one, as Jamie sorts through her thoughts. Tamara knows more about her than anyone ever has. That woman has every childhood secret, every trauma, every moment that lead her to where she is now, all written down in a file that must be thicker than the bloody Shakespeare textbook Dani had left on her desk in her fumbled haste to get out of the room the night before. Jamie does trust Tamara, she’s never given her a reason not to, never judged her and probably never will, but that’s all in the job description, when it comes down to it. Jamie considers that as far as job descriptions go, Tamara would probably be well within her rights to report a relationship between a inmate and a member of staff, and as for Dani’s, banging her students was definitely not a part of hers. 

‘Lets just call her Poppins, for now, yeah?’ 

‘Okay.’ Tamara knows when to push, and when to accept the information she’s given and work with that. ‘And I’m guessing this Poppins, is pretty important to you, given that she’s found her way into your subconscious?’ 

Jamie nods hesitantly, although her hesitation doesn’t lie in the answer to Tamara’s question, more in her willingness to admit it, to admit that Dani does, in fact, mean a great deal to her, a lot more than she’d like to admit, and a lot more than she’s brave enough to really believe. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ She shakes the image of Dani, enveloped in thick murky water and lying lifeless at the bottom of some dirty old lake, of her own hand outstretched, begging for Dani to take hold of it, to pull Jamie to her fate, because Jamie just can’t bring herself to live in a world without Dani in it 

Tamara leans forward in her seat, catches Jamie’s eye despite the brunette’s attempts to swerve her gaze. ‘Not every relationship in your life is going to end the way the others have, Jamie.’ She speaks slowly, makes sure her words are at least touching the surface. ‘You’re frightened because you couldn’t protect your brothers, your father, Tina… but most of all, you couldn’t protect yourself.’ She emphasises the last word, triggers Jamie to lift her head, abandon the loose thread of blanket she’s been fiddling with. ‘You were just a kid, Jamie. Kids can’t raise kids, and they can’t raise adults, either. I think you’re old enough now, have enough self awareness to understand that a relationship is shared, the burdens, the barriers, the boundaries, it works both ways, and the weight of this isn’t all on you.’ 

Jamie lets each word slip across her mind, carefully analyses each one as it goes. She thinks about that conversation with Dani on the phone, and how despite that, when she opened her eyes in the infirmary, the blonde was still there, weaselled her way into a secure medical facility just to sit by her bedside as she slept. She thinks about how Dani had fought for her from the very start, just as Jamie had done for the teacher herself. A two way street works so much better than everyone trying to force themselves onto one small path, crashing into one another in the worst possible way until they’ve ruined each other completely. With Dani, if there’s a wreckage, it’s taken, formed carefully into new objects with the capability to learn from their mistakes and grow in the others presence. 

That’s the difference, but knowing that doesn’t make this any easier to handle. 

‘I just wish I could keep her safe from all this, keep us both safe.’

Tamara places a hand on Jamie’s forearm, a rare moment of genuine affection amongst a usually strictly professional conversation. ‘The concepts of love and possession are so different, Jamie, although they look so similar on the outside. That’s why people tend to mix the two things up so easily, but I think - I know - that you’re more than capable of pulling them apart.’

It’s those two words that really stick with Jamie, after the psychologist says her goodbyes, arranges an appointment for the same time next week, after Rebecca comes and goes, sorts out her medication and checks her over before bed. The polar opposites of love and ownership, and how they can appear so alike, when in reality they have nothing in common at all. It stays with her even in her sleep, it seems, as the darkness makes way for another dream that has Dani at its very centre, the life they’ve created together at the heart of it all, built from love, never tainted with the idea of possession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, i hope this makes up for it :)


	13. photograph

They’re sitting in the soft glow of lamplight, the kids sprawled out on blankets laid out across the floor, Owen and Hannah curled up together on the chair opposite them, and the then there’s Dani and Jamie, at a either end of the sofa, the space between them is small, but it screams to be closed. It’s held open by Jamie’s own subconscious, separated even in her dreams from the feel of Dani’s gentle arms around her, unable to hold one another in whichever dimension they find themselves in. Dani’s gestures look softer in the dim light, melt Jamie, melt into Jamie.

They’re talking, voices barely above a whisper s to not disturb the other occupants in the room, as to keep this moment for the both of them, just them, forever. 

Dani’s holding a Polaroid picture of Jamie and Tina, Jamie isn’t even sure if it’s a real photo, or something else her mind has made up of its own accord, either way, it makes her stomach churn. The paper is worn with age, ripped from a lack of looking after. Inside the yellowing white frame, Jamie’s arms are wrapped around her ex’s shoulders. The colours bleed into one another, bleed into a different time, a different life. ‘You guys, you look like Bonnie and Clyde, well, if Bonnie and Clyde were… y’know.’

Jamie shakes her head, shifts uncomfortably. Dani can sense a bubbling anger inside the other woman’s chest, but it stays below the surface, Jamie can hold in her emotions well, comes from years of practice, of invalidation and hurt. Instead, it presents itself as a sad expression instead, a low voice. ‘Yeah, or if Clyde fucked Bonnie over.’ She sighs, allows her eyes to sweep over the picture between Dani’s fingers. ‘She got away, I guess I paid the price.’ 

Dani turns, forgets the photo in her hand for the minute, eyes now resting completely on Jamie, stares at her like she’s the only other person in the universe, like nothing, and nobody else truly mattered, not in the grand scheme of things. ‘I just don’t understand…’ she pauses, tries to place her words correctly. ‘How you could risk it all, risk your life for someone who hasn’t even bothered to call since...’

‘The wrong kind of love can fuck you up, follow you,’ It might be the most serious she’s ever seen Jamie, and she cant take her eyes off her. Can’t pull herself away from the movement of Jamie’s lips and the burn of abandonment behind her eyes, in her words. Jamie continues, laughs through her words, although the sound lacks any real humour. ‘Make you do some really stupid shit.’ Jamie drags out the last three words, like she’s willing them to pry themselves away from her lips. Her eyes dip again to the photograph, frozen in Dani’s hand, her past self staring back at her and its only now that she can see how trapped she was, the hold Tina had on her. ‘Us two, that was the wrong kind of love… I didn’t see it then, for whatever reason, but now… I see how she twisted herself into me, burrowed in deep. I know why so many people mix up love and possession.’ Jamie stops speaking, the two women looking at each other through the silence, studying every detail of one another and both becoming equally enveloped in other.

When Dani finally dares to break that silence, her voice is a hoarse whisper, delicate as it escapes her lips. ‘People do, don’t they?’ a pause, a confirmation. ‘Mix up love and possession?’ 

‘Yeah, they do.’ Jamie responds.

‘I don’t think that should be possible. I mean, they’re opposites really. Love and ownership.’

Any anger, any hate for what had happened to her, has faded from Jamie’s eyes mow, her whole being is focused on Dani, on the words she’s saying to her and how perfectly they fit into one other, slot into place because god shes so right. ‘Yeah.’ She breathes, there’s so much more she could say, should say, but for some reason all she can do is agree, tries to fit everything she’s feeling into a single word and just hope that somehow that translates to Dani one way or another. 

The moment lingers, it lingers for what feels like an eternity, and it’s only broken when Hannah lifts her head from Owen’s shoulder, takes in the children lying asleep on the floor. ‘They really ought to be in bed.’ She interrupts, already moving to get up. 

Then she’s woken by the loud clang of the breakfast alarm, though she cant actually go anywhere to get any, so she’s not sure why it seems so much louder up here than it had done in her old cell. 

She stretches, shakes her head to try and clear it of the remanence of another dream, another veil of sleep, one that she thanks her lucky stars had been cut short before anyone could get hurt, and completely unaware that, across town, a certain blonde teacher has just awoken to the sound of her own alarm, from the very same sequence of events 

//

‘So you’re telling me that Rebecca walked in on you having your way with Jamie, your student, an inmate at the jail we all work at.’ He pauses for effect more than anything. ‘That Jamie?’ Owen is clearly delighting in the news, ecstatic to have yet another reason to take the complete and utter piss out of his neighbour, and proceeds to do just that. Dani curses herself for even letting it slip, curses the wine Hannah had provided her with for altering the freaking chemistry in her brain to the point where, in some universe, she thought telling Owen what had happened would be a good idea. ‘In her prison cell?’ he adds, emphasises the end of his question and narrows his eyes. he lowers his voice. ‘Guess protective custody isn’t the only kind of protection she’ll be needing…’

Dani sucks her lips together, dimples showing through her guilt and embarrassment, eyes shining. Owen looks over at her momentarily, waiting for a response. ‘No.. we weren’t- we didn’t actually get to do that-‘

Owen can’t hold back a laugh. ‘Only because Rebecca walked in before you had the chance!’ he calls her out, yet again..

‘I…’ Dani sighs, once again defeated by Owen. How does this man do it? how hoes he crack her every time? ‘Yes…. But I was going to stop it before it got that far. I, I was about to stop it.’ She stops then, cuts herself off because now shes just outright lying to herself. No amount of reasoning could have snapped her out of that moment, could have clouded the overwhelming desire she felt as she sat face to face with Jamie on the prison mattress, as she felt hot breath against her neck. She runs a hand over her face, a last ditch attempt to not allow herself to get caught up in those thoughts again. ‘What do you know about Jamie’s ex?’ she asks. 

‘Not a lot.’ Owen admits, shrugs. ‘She’s never really spoken about her. Past is the past, and all that I suppose. I know Jamie was pretty broken up about her for a while though, although I can’t blame her, really. A gesture like that, and she never heard a word from her again.’ He sighs, glances at Dani. ‘How come?’

‘I just-‘ Dani shakes head, waves it off because if shes being honest she feels a bit silly for analysing this deep into a dream, holding her unconscious brain to such significance. ‘It’s nothing, I just had a weirdly realistic dream last night.’ 

//

‘And that.’ Dani finishes. ‘Is how you analyse an entire verse of Shakespeare.’ She places her pen down, closes the book. Its ‘Romeo & Juliet.’, and Jamie knows Dani hasn’t chosen this particular play for the hell of it. 

There’s a small silence as Jamie turns to face her teacher, the movement pulling Dani’s eyes toward her like a magnet. She tries to keep them fixed on the desk, fixes them between two specifically uninteresting knots in the wood. The brunette folds her arms, leans back in her chair. ‘I see.’ She nods, clearly in the mood to discuss more than a couple of star-crossed lovers. She confirms this, when she leans over, tilts Dani’s chin so shes looking directly at her. ‘How about,’ she starts, and Dani can feel her blood rising to the surface of her skin. ‘We analyse each other?’ 

Dani’s muscles tense under Jamie’s light touch. God she knows exactly what she’d doing. ‘Jamie,’ she breathes out her name desperately. ‘We cant. We cant risk it again.’ 

Jamie moves her hand from beneath Dani’s chin so that its resting on her cheek, runs her thumb along soft skin. She’s grinning, lightening the tension with humour because at the end of the day, even Jamie knows that they can’t risk it. They can’t risk being seen by anyone who isn’t Rebecca and the universe had been kind enough already, they didn’t have many chances left. ‘Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?’ 

Dani sighs, matches the other woman’s smile as she covers Jamie’s hand with hers, pulls it away. She lets their hands dangle for a second, swinging in mid air, not breaking the connection, holding them together. ‘Don’t do that.’ She smirks, is met with a head tilt and a cocked eyebrow, a smug question.

‘Do what?’

‘That!’ Dani exclaims, drops Jamie’s hand and crosses her own arms over her chest and closes her eyes. ‘Make one of the worlds greatest tragedies sound so…’ she gestures for a moment. ‘Sexy.’ She settles. Looks back up at Jamie. Her eyes are sparkling, they’re like little sparkling whirlpools and Dani is sucked further in every time she allows herself to look into them. ‘desire’s what killed them, y’know.’ She adds, hands Jamie a blank piece of paper and a pen of her own. 

Jamie takes them, as always letting her touch longer just a second too long. She scoffs. ‘I think that was more to do with their shitty fucking families.’

‘Maybe,’ Dani can’t help but chuckle at this. But please do not write ‘shitty fucking families’ in your literature exam, Jamie. Now, work, or they’ll stop letting me teach you, and we wouldn’t want-‘

Jamie put her hands up in defeat, flicks the lid off her pen. ‘Fine.’ She huffs, small pout playing on her lips, another thing that Dani has to turn away from, as to not give in to the urges that strengthened by the second. ‘Suit yourself, Miss C.’

The lessons go faster in person, though Jamie can’t imagine why. 

So Dani’s gone, and Jamie’s lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking. She’s thinking about Dani. Specifically, she’s thinking about the sound of Dani cursing earlier, Jamie has never heard dani swear before, and god was it sexy. Its something she hadn’t known she’d needed to hear until she had, and now its burned into her brain, and it’s right in the horny part, wherever that is. 

As the days turn to weeks, Dani’s consistent, they fall into a routine of reading, writing, flirting, sprinkle in light brushes, accidental touches that are anything but accidents. There are a few times when they lose themselves in a moment, their lips drawn to each other, electric as they meet, and pull away with the aftershock, with the knowledge that they’ve let themselves go again, fallen too far into their own atmosphere, the one that belongs to them and no one else, no matter where they are. It pulls them in like, well, a gravity well. Just like the prison itself. 

Other than that, they manage to keep their hands off each other, ever since Rebecca had walked in on them, their hands had stayed strictly above belt when in the other’s presence. Now, what went on when they were alone was different, and certainly below the waistband. Jamie doesn’t make it easy, teases and flirts and smirks and grins, and Dani doesn’t quite know how she’s managed it when they get through two weeks, when Jamie tells her she’ll be moving back to gen pop tomorrow, that she can start attending proper classes again, and even start back in the gardens next week, so long as she takes it easy. 

Dani’s happy for her, of course she is, this is what Jamie had wanted for weeks now, and she was finally getting it back. Her plants, her routine, the relative freedom that came with getting out of solitary and back into general population. Jamie’s beaming, practically buzzing at the idea, but Dani cant ignore the itch in her chest at the thought of Jamie going back out there, no protection but herself. She’s also become accustomed to their alone time, the hours they passed in that little cell, cramped into the small space in front of the desk as they learn, not just the curriculum, but each other, too.

They talk. They talk about everything, from favourite movies, to favourite foods, to the stars and the oceans and plants, that’s Jamie’s favourite topic, of course. She could go on for hours if Dani let her, and sometimes the blonde did just that. She’d sit through seminars on the process of growing lavender in spring, how to get a tomato just right, she’d listen to Jamie drone on forever just to see the twinkle of passion in her eye. They talk about their pasts, too, revealing details at their own paces, revealing small pieces of themselves every day until a bigger picture begins to form, until they are finally starting to really know the other. 

What they both didn’t know, was that for every word they spoke, every bit of information they allowed one other to hold, they’re falling more desperately into each other, into bright eyes that sometimes filled with glassy tears, tears of laughter or pain or both. They’re fallen into lips, into delicate skin and the arches of hips and gentle fingertips that dance around each other perfectly. It’s beautiful, despite all of the ugliness that lead them here. 

Hell was the journey, but perhaps it was bringing them heaven. 

Perhaps. 

It isn’t often that Jamie allows herself to hope, in fact, she might never have really hoped before, or at least not that she can remember. When you’re burned enough times you learn to stay away from the fire. Hope is Jamie’s fire – or, it was, before Dani, before all this. 

She’s staring at the bottom of the bunk bed, a familiar view that seems like a distant memory now, the moonflower staring back at her, full bloom. As far as this photograph goes, this flower will bloom forever, frozen in time, though it must have died years ago, by now. Strange how one moment can be captured with the press of a button, can be frozen in time and held. Jamie wants to hold Dani like that. She wants to flick a switch, freeze every second as it passes and keep them in photographs, so when she’s alone, on nights like tonight, she can hold Dani, still. 

The next moment that Jamie might just give anything to hold forever, comes sooner than she expects. 

//

Dani’s barely slept, as as she tossed and turned her way through the night, she’d come to a realisation. 

At first, she’d pushed it away, the whole idea of it because, well, not only was it impractical, unethical, it was also god damn terrifying. Dani thinks, perhaps she’s hidden behind the restrictions of the prison, of the logistics of things, in an attempt to put off the inevitable, the inevitable being sex, of course. 

Every day that she avoids it, the idea that she’s never actually been with a woman before, gets a little more real, and she’s scared to make that leap. Jamie’s confident, bold, not to mention sexy as hell, and Dani doesn’t need to ask to know that she’s been with her fair share of girls during her time in London, maybe even before that. What Jamie has had to hide is different than what Dani has, both of them playing their own pretend games because that’s what they’d had to do in order to survive. Now, the walls were just about knocked down completely, revealing everything they’d each tucked away behind them. Dani has done her fair share of running, and now was the time to stop, to put her bags down, to allow herself to be who she is without shame or guilt or the weight of everyone she’s letting down.

Dani’s made her decision, and she’s never been one to go back on her promises, especially the ones she’s made to herself.

//

It’s Jamie’s first lesson back in the regular class. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like anything’s changed since she’s been away. She shuffles in, back of the line, hands in pockets, head down until she enters the room, then eyes raise to meet those that have been waiting for her. Bright and blue and glinting even under the classroom’s half dead lightbulbs, the lighting might be unflattering for anyone else, but Dani looks perfect, beautiful, frames her features washed white. Only Dani, she thinks, could pull this off.

The whole routine feels so familiar, the sneaking glances, the raise of the hand and subsequent faked question just for a moment closer together, the back turned away from everyone else as they whisper, and the way Dani brushes past her arm, so subtly intentional. There’s an electric current between them, sparks unpredictably. It’s killing them hem both so softly, all of the secrets, silent suspense, and yearning, god. 

Four hours, and yet it feels like days, weeks before their time’s up, before the officer leads out the line of convicts, and Dani calls Jamie to the front of the class, requests a ‘quick check in’ since Jamie’s missed so much classroom time, that’s what she calls it, anyway. Clever, Jamie thinks, knows the guards are too incompetent to ever see anything beyond that. They probably wouldn’t have even noticed her missing from the back of the line, even if Dani hadn’t asked their permission first. It might just be the first time that the officer’s sheer lack of capability worked in Jamie’s favour. It’s where her laid back presence, ability to fade so easily into the mass of inmates, comes in handy as well, because now they’re alone again, face to face on either side of Dani’s desk, and Dani is silent, pulls open the top drawer of her desk, hand emerging seconds later with a single bronze key hanging from a rusted key ring, dangles it between her fingers and her face says it all.

‘Is that?’ Jamie asks incredulously, eyebrows raised. ‘Dani.’ She scolds her, lips form a teasing smile. 

Dani nods, makes her way around her desk and over to the classroom door, fits the key into the lock and turns it. She glances over at Jamie, cheeks lit up with a rare sort of mischievous glow. Jamie’s watching her every move, follows Dani’s hand as it moves to the door handle, turns it and pulls, just to make sure. The door doesn’t budge, prison locks have to be strong, and the handle just rattles against her touch. 

Jamie’s leaning against Dani’s desk, arms folded, bites her lip in anticipation, in what she thinks, hopes, is coming. ‘Dani…’ she repeats, quieter this time, breathes out her name and handles it like its some sort of precious metal. 

Dani’s in front of Jamie now, and she’s practically tingling, her whole body consumed by what’s about to happen. Jamie’s expression is playful, she’s calm and Dani isn’t sure how she keeps herself so in check. Practice, she assumes. The gap is closed with a final step, and Dani raises her hands, cups both of Jamie’s cheeks in them and rests their foreheads against each other. ‘I know you get out of here in a few weeks,’ she starts. Her voice is breathy, barely above a whisper, and god, is it sexy. ‘But, I… I don’t want to- I cant wait.’ She corrects herself, because she needs this. She needs Jamie inside her and she needs it now. ‘I’m ready, Jamie.’

‘Thank fuck.’ Jamie whispers, lifts her own hands, places them on Dani’s hips as they collide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued ;)


	14. buttons

Jamie leans into Dani, hands creeping up her back, grip her shoulders as they rise and fall against each other in perfect synchrony, their bodies move together effortlessly as they kiss, tongue’s sweep over one another, run along teeth. Jamie delights in the sound that falls from Dani’s mouth when she pulls the blonde’s lip between her teeth, it only urges her pull Dani’s body in, impossibly closer, tighten her grip, fingers tense against the soft material of Dani’s shirt.

Jamie retreats, only momentarily, turns her attention to the silver buttons that fasten two halves of floral cotton, works her way down, undoing them with ease until she reaches the final one, and Dani shrugs the burden of the fabric from her shoulders. 

Jamie takes it in for a second, the image in Dani standing topless in the middle of the classroom, her own body longing to feel every inch of exposed skin against her own. She can’t hold herself back any longer, crashes back into Dani, kisses increasing as quickly in speed as they are in passion. Jamie leans forward, keeps a hand on Dani’s back to steady her, and the other moves down, searches blindly until it rests on her hip. The brunette pushes forward, moves the two of them as though they’ve become a single being, leads them behind the desk and spins Dani around so that she’s pinned against the blackboard, the hand that was previously against Dani’s back now closing in on her neck, gentle passion, and kisses that move from lips to shoulder blades. 

‘Jamie.’ Dani’s already breathless, taken over by indescribable feelings, coursing relentlessly through every vein in her body, pulsate in her head, her heart, her clit. ‘Fuck..’ its all she can muster, the single moan of a curse, and that’s what does it for Jamie, fingers creep along the waistband of Dani’s black flares, run along the hem of the trousers until they find the zipper, simultaneously drops her head, litters kisses across Dani’s chest.

‘Jesus, Dani.’ Jamie starts, wonders just how much of the class Dani has been holding back for. She smirks against the teacher’s collarbone as she finds her way into Dani’s pants. She’s already wet, and Jamie cant hold back a moan, dry and husky and god does it do things to Dani, pushes her limits, and she knows Jamie can feel her quivering against her.

Jamie’s rubbing soft circles, each one causing Dani to tense, Jamie’s grazing her teeth across Dani’s chest, earns her a delicate whimper, as Jamie turns, dominates the movement as she adjusts their position once more, lays Dani carefully down against the desk and straddles her. ‘God, Jamie.. o-on the desk…’ Dani can barely get her words out, her voice low and desperate. 

‘Shh.’ Jamie hushes her between the placement of kisses she’s planting down Dani’s neck. She sucks on silk skin, digs her teeth in a little for an extra touch. Dani groans, wraps her legs around Jamie’ waist as she works. 

Jamie allows her fingers to move slowly into Dani, starts with two, slides them in with ease and thrusts. Dani’s gasp quickly morphs into a moan, and Jamie can barely contain herself at the noises coming from the blonde as she continues to move in and out of her, increases her speed steadily. Jamie wants this to last as long as it can, so she waits, waits for Dani to vocalise her want for more.

It doesn’t take long for Dani to cave, gives into her yearning. 

‘J-jamie,’ Dani starts to plead, her hands are tangled in Jamie’s hair now, pulling subconsciously against her curls in a desperate attempt to relieve the tension, she’s pulling hard, and Jamie loves it. 

Jamie doesn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence to know what Dani wants, but she teases Dani for just a second longer. ‘Watch and learn, Miss Clayton.’ Jamie whispers, lips tickle Dani’s collarbone as hot breath meets bare skin. ‘It’s my turn to teach you something, this time.’ And she does. She slides a third finger into Dani, and in seconds the blonde’s hips are thrusting in time with Jamie’s movements. If only this could go on forever, this feeling, this moment. 

If this is the first time Dani’s done this, god is she a quick learner. She’s giving Jamie exactly what she wants as they continue, hips arched and body stiff and Jamie knows enough to know just how close Dani is by now. ‘God.’ The blonde rasps, and one of her hands snakes under Jamie’s loose prison scrub shirt, finds her tit and grasps it, caresses it with her thumb as she digs her fingers into soft skin. ‘Don’t.. don’t stop, Jamie.’ She begs. Jamie just hums in response, because she knows that Dani is seconds away from finishing whether she likes it or not. Still, she continues, quickens her pace as she feels Dani’s clit nearing its limit. It only takes Jamie lowering her head slightly, scraping her teeth into Dani’s breast for the blonde to give in, the sound she makes igniting pure, white hot sparks inside Jamie, triggering fully fledged fireworks to explode. Dani cums, as Jamie had expected, her head falling back against the wood of the desk as she pants out Jamie’s name, groans, body relaxes as she sighs in contentedness. 

Jamie slows down, drags the moment out for as little longer as she slides out of Dani, and raises her head, now she’s eye to eye with the blonde she can see the glow in her cheeks and the relief in her eyes that mirrors her own, at finally being able to indulge fully in what they’d both wanted for what felt like forever. Dani reaches up, pulls Jamie’s lips towards hers, lets a slower, calmer, kiss linger there, although its just as passionate. They take their time, mouths working around each other softly, slowly. 

When they finally break apart, theres a moment of silence as Jamie untangles herself from Dani, reluctantly knows that if they had the time, had the opportunity, she’d go again there and then. She slowly stands and offers a hand to Dani. She pulls her into a sitting position, legs hanging over the side of the desk as she starts to redo the buttons on her shirt. Her hands are trembling in the aftershock of everything she’s just felt, experienced. She can’t quite comprehend how it all felt so unbelievably right. She’d never really felt truly satisfied, she thought, until now. Just the thought of sex with Edmund had always repulsed her.

Jamie sees Dani’s struggle against the buttons, her fingers refusing to comply with her brain, chuckles. ‘Here.’ She says, steps towards Dani and covers the blondes hands with her own. Dani lets her arms fall to her sides as Jamie fastens her shirt with the same smooth easiness that she’d undone it with earlier. Once its done, Jamie’s gaze lifts, catching Dani’s that has clearly been watching every movement with careful intent.

There’s a pause, as they lose themselves in one another, something that had become such a common occurrence now that they barely even realised when it was happening. Its quiet until Dani speaks up. ‘Was that okay?’ She asks, her voice quiet, cheeks flush red in her nervousness. 

Jamie’s not sure how Dani could ever doubt herself after that performance, but she knows this is all new to the blonde, and she takes that into consideration. ‘It was perfect.’ She responds, crooked smile and eyes shining. ‘I’d give you a solid A+ in lesbian sex.’ 

//

As the days pass, and the nights get shorter, Jamie spends more time in the gardens, nurtures what she’s been working on for months now, watches the leaflings that are finally starting to bloom, coming hand in hand with warm breezes and brighter colours. There’s a different sort of air around the spring, even the gates of the prison feel lighter, less suffocating. 

Last spring Jamie was a completely different person. Last spring Jamie was risking everything for someone she barely knew, when it came down to it. She was spending her days cooped up in a tiny damp flat in one of the darkest corners of the city, no leccy, the only source of heat a shitty portable radiator that was half conked out. She was surviving off a balanced diet of cocaine and cheap vodka, a cigarette for breakfast and meat and veg from tinned cans for dinner, if she could scrape together enough change. She really had nothing for herself back then. She’d come to London with a single rucksack and the clothes on her back, and she’d been lead to believe that this was it for her. This was as good as it would ever get. A roof over her head, someone to shag and something to smoke. 

It feels like a lifetime ago, now, and Jamie knows that’s for the best.

Prison was miserable, and while it was one of the worst experiences of her life, it was also one of the most eye opening, too. It’s shown her what priorities mean, that theres more to life than she had allowed herself to initially believe. She was capable of more, hell, she deserved more. Being locked up, being forced to face her past, her damage, it had taught her that while there will always be darkness, that there are other ways to burn away the shadows, other ways to find the light. 

Her garden is just one of them, and her first day back working only cemented that. Something about giving herself to those plants. It filled her up, and it wasn’t the only thing, she’d found, that did. 

The first time Dani visits her, its unexpected. Jamie’s been here almost a year, and never once has she been called when it came to visitation. She’d often caught herself hoping - wishing, even – that for some reason, someone would want to take the time out of their day to sit in a dingy little booth and talk to her through a pane of glass, speak into a telephone for a half hour, just to see her. Every Sunday, when the guards read the list of names, monotonously checking off each ones as the respective woman emerged from her cell, Jamie would listen, a knot in her stomach at the slightest hint of a chance. Rationally, of course, she knew nobody was coming. As far as her family goes, nobody even knows where she was, and probably didn’t care for that matter, and after the first two months, she’d given up any hope of Tina showing her face, either. 

From the very start of her sentence, Jamie’s been on her own. 

But then there was Dani. 

So when she’s listening to the names being read out that week, she lets them wash over her one by one as she throws a scrunched up ball of paper in the air, catches it every time. 

She almost thinks she’s making it up, at first, as the paper falls, hits the mattress and her hand hovers in mid air. There’s a beat, before what could easily have been a hallucination turns into reality, and she hears her name again, the tone much more impatient now, and she scrambles to her feet. ‘Jamie T-‘ the voice starts too say again, almost bellowing now, frustrated at being held up even by a few seconds. 

Jamie emerges. ‘Yeah?’ she’s unsure what to say, she doesn’t even know the protocol for visitors. 

‘Follow me.’

There’s a line of them, about fifteen women, and they travel as they usually do, in a straight line, hands visible, in silence. They’re lead down a few corridors, around a corner and into a large room a line of booths in the centre. Jamie scans each one, looks for a familiar face, whoever has come to see her must know her somehow. Its not until she reaches the final one, that she sees her. 

Of course its Dani, she thinks.

At first sight of Jamie, Dani’s eyes light up, almost literally, light up. Her body straightens, and her lips curve up almost subconsciously. The guard tells the women to find their booth, and Jamie makes her way over to the other side of the room, pulls out the chair. The closer she gets, the brighter Dani’s smile glows, and by the time she’s sitting in front of her, the blonde looks like she might burst with excitement, with… love? 

Jamie plucks that thought from her mind, scrunches it up like the ball of paper she’d previously occupied herself with. Love wasn’t a concept Jamie would play into, her subconscious could persuade her of many things, but someone loving her, truly loving her? That wasn’t realistic. People like her, they weren’t worth that kind of effort. 

She picks up the phone from the hook on the wall, grips the cool green metal and holds it to her ear, watches as Dani does the same, can almost hear her smile through the receiver. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ She asks, quirks an eyebrow, tilts her head. Jamie’s default setting is flirtatious, sarcasm and cheekiness, Dani’s realised over the weeks. 

‘I missed you.’ She answers simply, pretends not to notice the quiver of Jamie’s lip as her smirk attempts to widen into a grin. ‘And, I wanted to try the whole hand on glass thing… that they do in the movies, see if it lived up to the hype.’ 

Jamie laughs, rolls her eyes. ‘You’ll be lucky, Miss C.’ She scoffs, and Dani’s relieved to see her posture relax a little as she slouches back into her seat, twists the chord of the phone around her fingers in a way that turns Dani on a little too much. She pulls her eyes away. ‘I’ve never been one for cliches.’ 

Dani fakes a frown. ‘Really?’ She asks, leans forward in her seat, lowers her voice. ‘Because, having sex with a teacher, in her own classroom, on her own desk, no less… seems pretty cliché to me.’ 

The look on Dani’s face sends a tingle through Jamie’s whole body, and if she wasn’t so caught off guard by this whole situation she might have something more witty prepared to shoot back in response. Instead, she shrugs. ‘Had to work with what I had available to me, didn’t I?’ A pause. ‘Besides, you did sort of blindsight me.’ 

‘Oh please.’ Dani giggles. ‘Like you didn’t know it was coming!’

Jamie shakes her head. ‘Well, not after your whole speech..’ she straightens, mimics Dani’s American accent surprisingly well as she impersonates the blonde. ‘We have to be careful, Jamie.’ ‘I’m your teacher, Jamie.’ 

There’s a light flush in Dani’s cheeks at the sound of Jamie imitating her. Its actually quite hot, but she plays along, folds her arms and pouts. ‘I do not sound like that.’ 

‘Yeah, you do.’

‘Hey! I can go, y’know… walk out the door at any moment…’

The laughter dies out then, and Jamie looks down. For a moment Dani panics, thinks she’s said something wrong. Perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned her freedom when Jamie’s locked up behind that glass. No, she definitely shouldn’t have said that. Guilt is welling up in her chest as she watches Jamie’s expression, the brunette is deep in thought, and Dani can’t handle the silence. ‘I’m sorry.’ She starts, nervously. ‘ I didn’t mean to upset you, I shouldn’t have said-‘

‘Dani.’ Jamie stops her, quickly realising that her silence has been misinterpreted by the blonde. ‘I’m not upset.’

‘You’re not?’

‘Of course I’m not.’ Jamie sighs, shifts her position. ‘I just… nobody’s ever come to visit before. No ones ever taken the time… I’m just, surprised.’ She finishes, though she knows that’s not the right word, it’ll have to do for now. ‘I dunno why you go to this much effort for me, really. I’m not worth it.’

It breaks Dani’s heart, the way Jamie genuinely believes what she’s saying, the way she wholeheartedly believes that nobody could possibly care enough to take an hour out of their day for her. In truth, Dani would give every hour of every day for the other woman, if it came down to it, and she’d give anything for Jamie to see that, to see how important she is. ‘Jamie,’ she starts, unable to hide the sadness in her voice. ‘Of course you’re worth it.’ 

Jamie’s still not convinced, but she seems content enough with Dani’s answer to move on. 

Dani listens to Jamie talk about the garden, about whats blooming when and where and about how beautiful it all is, like watching your kids leave home, she says. For the first time, she also talks about later, about life after she gets out of here, approaches the subject tentatively, like she’s stepping around broken glass, but Dani doesn’t miss the way her eyes widen a little at the prospect of a life beyond the prison gates. ‘I want to open a flower shop, I think.’ She explains, speaks of the foundation of a life she wants to create. A little shop, with a little flat and a little dog, in a little town. 

It all sounds so right that Dani almost gets carried away with Jamie’s words as they pass through the short cable that passes through the wall. She’s so caught up, that she jumps at the sound of the bell ringing, that she’s saddened by the realisation that she has to leave. ‘That’s us, then.’ Jamie sighs, and even she cant hide the disappointment that comes with her reality. ‘I guess ill, uh, see you in class.’ 

Dani nods, and Jamie’s about to hang up the phone, when Dani stops her. ‘Could i… would it be okay if I come back next week?’

Jamie nods, although she can’t imagine why Dani would want to spend her Sunday here again. ‘Yeah, sure.’ She starts. ‘Although, I’ll have to check my schedule.’ She adds sarcastically, watches as Dani chuckles, listens as the laughter gets further away, drifts out of earshot when Dani hangs up the phone. Dani turns to grab her coat from the back of her seat, and when she whips back around, Jamie’s hand is pressed against the glass, fingers spread out, crooked grin. Dani takes a breath, attention drawn away from the button on her jacket, places her hand against the glass in line with Jamie’s. 

Perhaps cliché’s aren’t so bad after all. 

//

That night, as she tucks into her jacket potato, Dani finds herself flicking through a homeward magazine that had been shoved through her letterbox weeks earlier, something she’d discarded, forgotten until now. She finds herself picking out couches, beds, closets, circling them in biro, tells herself she’s just considering redecorating. Ignores the nagging questions of ‘what would Jamie think of that?’ or ‘would Jamie like this colour scheme?’ 

She knows she’s getting ahead of herself, way ahead of herself, but god she just can’t shake the idea of it, of a future with Jamie at her side, of a little flat in a little town. Just the two of them. It’s the first time she’s ever really considered her own future without her thoughts being laced with anxiety, shrouded in dread, and the knowledge that she’ll never truly have what she needs. All of those feelings sneer so far away now, whenever she thinks of Jamie, she barely remembers them at all. 

She closes the magazine halfway through. She’s only breaking her own heart. When Jamie leaves the prison she wont want to be tied down, she’ll want to be free, make up for lost time. Jamie’s a drifter, with a nomadic nature. Dani can’t expect her to change that, to commit herself to a woman she’s known for such a short time. Its not fair. Its not practical. 

She’s flicking through the channels, settles on some comedy show, anything to fill the silence, and she must’ve fallen asleep there, because the next thing she knows she’s waking to the morning news, the sound of a bird outside her window as the sky hovers between light and dark. She’s barely opened her eyes before the feeling hits her all over again, the torturous, fuzzy cocktail of excitement and nervousness in her stomach that comes with knowing today is another school day, another day where she gets to see Jamie face to face, eye to eye, lips to lips…

Oh god, she curses herself. She’s so whipped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think of this one!
> 
> As far as continuing this story goes, i have two options. I can end it where Jamie gets out, within the next couple of chapters (probably with a short epilogue), or i could extend it on after she gets out, (i may have a storyline in mind involving Jamie’s ex, possibly something to do with Eddie, too), but i wanted to get some of your feedback on whether you want more, or if you feel that’d be too much before i planned anymore.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!


	15. peace

Somewhat unintentionally, a pattern begins to emerge on school days. Dani would wake, her stomach bubbling with the same feelings of eagerness and apprehension that somehow never seemed to get old. She’d call on Owen, usually at least half an hour early, and she’d talk his ear off about god knows what for the entirety of the journey. He’d walk her to class, say his goodbyes, and Dani would wait. She’d wait for the clock to turn to nine thirty, wait for the crack in the door and the line of inmates, wait for Jamie, last in line, expression full of the same excitement that rose in Dani’s chest at the sight of her. 

The four hours of class were torturous, time dragging its feet as it teased them more every day, every hour, every minute, they were apart. Jamie always hung back, and they’re just glad the officers don’t pay enough attention to care. She waits until the women leave, disappear from view and then Dani locks the classroom door behind them, turns to Jamie, practically jumps her on the spot. 

After a week, Jamie’s running out of furniture, running out of new places to pin Dani down, give her everything she deserves, everything she’s got. They’re getting to know each other in a whole new way, now, the feel of the other’s body, every part as new and exciting as the last. Jamie introduces Dani to just how much more her mouth can do than simply kiss her, delights in the pleasure it brings when she licks, twists her tongue around Dani’s clit, hits the right spots, at the right times, raspy, soft moans confirm her success, lead the rest of her movements as she finds her rhythm. It’s a whole new world for Dani, and she’s so god damn happy to finally be living in it. 

On this particular day, Jamie finally plucks up the courage, allows Dani to slide the rough material of the prison issue sweater she’s wearing over her head, stands face to face with the blonde, both women clad solely in their bras and pants. 

It’s not that Jamie’s ashamed, but she’s always been so used to the looks of pity, or disgust, or both, when they see the angry scar that runs over the back of her shoulder. The outline of the scolding hot water isn’t exactly subtle, a constant reminder of what she failed to do for her brother, for herself. People don’t like damage, generally, whether that be physical or emotional, and Jamie’s had her fair share of both. Tina used to tease her for it, for the blotches of scar tissue that have been there for so long now that she sometimes forgets are even there. She’d call them scales, or run her hand over them and laugh at the texture. Jamie had always grit her teeth, laughed along because it was easier that way, to keep Tina happy, calm. But the brunette could never fully ignore the nagging feeling in her stomach every time her skin was exposed, every time she was forced to remember. 

Jamie has two new scars now, too, ones she’s not so familiar with, and actually less conscious about if she’s honest. The thick line along the side of her abdomen where the blade had entered, swiped across her stomach weeks ago, and the thinner, more elegant line above that, where the surgeon had taken out her spleen on the operating table, both still held the remainder of the staples that had once held her skin together, fading now, but still visible against the otherwise smooth skin of her stomach. Once upon a time, Jamie would’ve cringed at the state of it, at another imperfection, but now she sees her scars as a roadmap, an A-Z of where she’s been, what she’s overcome, what she’s survived.

Dani steps toward her, closes the space between them, a hand on Jamie’s hip, the other traces the bottom cut on her abdomen, touch feather light, delicate and gentle. ‘You’re so beautiful.’ She breathes, her lips moving to kiss Jamie’s neck, sucks lightly on silk skin. Jamie’s silent, lets Dani take in her body, the curve of her hip, roundness of her breasts. Dani’s fingers hover over Jamie’s abs, brush across the skin that covers them. ‘And so fucking sexy.’ She adds, words more rough, husky as they fall from her lips. 

Jamie likes where this is going, lifts Dani’s chin with her finger and steers their lips into one another, smiles into the kiss. ‘What’s that they say..’ she starts, breathily, ‘about the student becoming the master?’ 

Dani knows what she’s implying, feels her stomach roll over in a mixture of excitement and anxiety. She wants to give Jamie what she’s asking for, longs to make her feel what the blonde herself feels every time Jamie’s inside her. She doesn’t want to let her down. ‘I dunno, Jamie..’ she whispers, words delicate as they meet Jamie’s ears. ‘What if…’

She’s cut off when Jamie places her hand over Dani’s, guides it slowly to the hem of her pants and underneath them, gives Dani the push she needs to make a go of it. It works. 

Dani’s shocked at how naturally it comes, how her will to satisfy Jamie and her human instinct work together to eradicate any fears or anxieties she might have about the situation. ‘That’s it, baby.’ Jamie urges as Dani slides her fingers into her. ‘Fuck.’ She rasps into Dani’s hair, breathing heavy, begging for more. 

‘You like that, hmm?’ Dani hums, any residual lack of surety faded completely now. Jamie thrusts against her, arches her hips as Dani slides in a second finger, then a third. Her pace steadily increases, teases Jamie as she occasionally slows again, only to speed back up moments later. Her fingers are soaked, and she can’t hold back the groan that falls from her own lips. 

After a while, Dani removes herself from inside Jamie, guides the brunette down to the carport behind the desk and straddles her on the floor. She plants wet kisses from Jamie’s shoulder all the way down her torso until she reaches the hem of her pants. She huffs in frustration, pulls them out of her way as she continues, kisses the outside of Jamie’s vagina, teases her clit with her lips before she sucks. ‘Fuck, Dani… oh my god.’ Her words are barely audible now as she whimpers in delight. Dani is thoroughly impressed with her work, continues as Jamie’s hand finds her hip and they move together, find their rhythm quickly as always. 

‘Don’t bring him into this…’ she whispers when she raises her head, retraces the line of kisses she’d littered across Jamie’s body before, works her way back up to the brunette’s collar bone. Neither of them care about the love marks that will be left in their wake, Jamie’s more concerned about how beautifully satisfying this is. Sex is so much more gratifying when its with someone you.. really like. 

They’re in what feels like a bubble that can’t be burst as they lie together on the classroom floor, concealed by the wood of the desk, wedged between the chair and the skirting board, Jamie lacing her fingers through Dani’s hair subconsciously, limbs tangle around one another, and Dani’s head is on Jamie’s chest, rises and falls as she breathes. 

Peace. 

//

The pattern continues with such easiness, that the days start to slip between their fingers, fall into weeks and before they know it, exams are slowly creeping up on them. Jamie studies every night, revises in her cell, reads, writes, practices. She started this whole thing to prove something to herself, to prove her intelligence, her capability, and she’ll be dammed if she messes that up now. 

As she lays awake the night before her first English literature paper, an arm bent behind her head as she stares at the bottom of the bunk above her, Jamie’s considering that despite what the exam results say, she’s coming out of the other side of this with more than just a few qualifications, she’s coming out of it with an understanding, with hope that maybe she wont be alone forever, that someone cares enough to want to be around her, to go to the effort Dani has, and still is, every day for her. 

She falls asleep thinking about that, about her and Dani and the feeling of peace that washes over her when they’re together, when their lips touch and their bodies collide, and everything else is just background noise. 

Jamie wakes early, nervous energy rousing her from sleep. She’s up and ready, paces her cell in an attempt to rid herself of some tension. She can play it down as much as she likes, probably will when she’s faced with other people, but this exam means something whether she likes it or not, this paper means something. She wants to make herself proud, wants to make Dani proud. 

Exams had never been her thing. They meant sitting in one place, still and silent for hours and concentrating the whole time. They meant pressure, and Jamie hates it. 

She’s pretty sure she’s hiding it well, as she stands with her back to the wall outside the classroom with her arms and legs crossed, eyes on the floor. The other girls are talking, discussing how much they have or haven’t studied, what they think will come up on the paper, Jamie’s actually quite surprised at how into this they all are, takes a second to praise Dani for her ability to take a group of women, most of them with no prospects, no hope for anything better, and channel all of their fear, all of their anger into something good, something beneficial. Dani had told her how badly she’d always wanted to make a difference, and that’s exactly what she’d been doing, and not just for Jamie. 

When the door opens, the desks are set up differently, spaced out across the classroom. Jamie heads to her usual seat, sits in the back corner, meets Dani’s eyes and smiles, crooked grin slightly less pronounced, twitches at the edges with nerves. 

Dani’s assuring from the second she lays eyes on her, cheeks glowing as she returns Jamie’s expression. Her eyes are full of pride, a confidence that seeps out and touches each one of the inmates in front of her. That’s all people need, sometimes, a person to believe in them. Dani does. She believes in every single one of them. It shows. 

Dani’s handing out the papers as she explains the rules of the exam, how she’s not allowed to read anything for them, not allowed to spell anything, or help them out with quotes. Tells them that this is their moment to prove themselves, to show the world that they’re so much more than their circumstances, locks eyes with Jamie as she says that, places the booklet in front of the brunette, brushes her arm and mouths a diligent ‘you got this, I know it’ before she turns, heads back to the front of the room. 

‘Alright, guys.’ She pulls a clockwork timer from her desk drawer, places it on her desk. ‘You have two hours, your time starts now.’

//

Dani’s brought a book, something to keep her mind off the test. She’s never been good on exam days, usually more anxious than the students themselves, if she’s completely honest. She sees the work they put in, sees the struggles and the potential to succeed, but exam conditions are nerve-wracking for the most academic of people, the pressure can take its toll, and she’s seen far too many good kids ruined by a botched system. The stakes feel even higher with this particular class, she knows what they’re up against, knows what they have to prove. 

Even with the distraction, though she cant help herself, cant stop the glances in Jamie’s direction, watches as she writes, chews her pen, stares into space, writes again, shifts, rubs her temples, writes. She’s hoping Jamie doesn’t notice, doesn’t want to put her off. If she does see Dani’s staring, though, she’s doing a good job of ignoring it. 

The time drags on, feels as though she’s been sitting at her desk for days when the timer rings, the sudden break in the silence forcing her out of her thoughts. She closes her book, stands, finally allows herself to scan the expressions before her. Mostly, the women are relieved, though she senses a level of anxiety, a lot of tension. ‘That’s it, times up.’ She keeps her tone light, and Jamie studies her. If she has any doubts, her expression is clear of them. There’s an increase in sound, chair legs scraping as the women stretch, close their booklets, wait for Dani to collect them. 

When she gets to Jamie, Dani’s trying to gage how she feels, how she’s found it, but the brunette isn’t giving anything away, stretches her arms above her head and presses her lips together. Dani isn’t sure if she’s intentionally trying to avoid thinking about it, but it doesn’t look like she’s up for the question. Still, she asks. ‘How was it?

Jamie shrugs. ‘I dunno.’ She sits forward. ‘I just.. maybe I’m past all this, maybe I’m kidding myself thinking I can… y’know.’ She gestures vaguely to the papers in Dani’s arms.

Shes doubting herself, and if Dani could take her by the shoulders and shake her right there she would. She doesn’t have to read Jamie’s paper to understand her intelligence, doesn’t need a letter grade to prove anything. She knows it isn’t that simple for jamie, though. ‘Hey.’ She says, her voice more gentle now as she places a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. ‘You did your best. Have faith in your capabilities.’ She straightens, wishes she could stay to convince Jamie of how much she undermines her own ability, but that’ll have to wait. ‘I know I do.’ She adds. Jamie responds with a smile, only its not really a smile at all. She can tell Dani’s sincere, but she can’t quite shake the fear of disappointing Dani, of all the effort the blonde has put into her being for nothing. 

//

‘How’s exam season going, then?’ Owen asks as he scoops Jamie’s portion onto her plate. 

Jamie exaggerates a sigh, rolls her eyes. ‘Please god, don’t mention it.’ She groans, prompts Owen to slip her an extra biscuit for afters despite his amusement. ‘Only one bastard paper in and I’m already losing the will.’

Through her humour, Owen can see that Jamie is genuinely stressed about the whole thing, her movements are tense. No special treatment for your extra curricular activities, then?’ He tries to lighten the mood, is glad when his joke is met with a light chuckle, lights up Jamie’s otherwise tired eyes for a moment. He’s happy he can lift the weight if only a little, it makes him feel useful, ‘doesn’t seem fair, if you ask me.’

‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’ She responds. ‘But Dani’s already told me that won’t fly, she doesn’t even mark em, sends them off to some brain-box across the country who’s got nothin better to do than read a hundred essays about Shakespeare’s portrayal of jealousy.’ She picks up her tray, as much as she adores her conversations with the chef, they’re always on the clock, though she could speak to Owen for hours if the situation allowed, he’s one of those people you just feel comfortable with, feel listened to no matter what the topic. ‘Think I’d rather poke my own eyes out.’

‘That’s a little bit dramatic, don’t you think?’ Owen laughs, as Jamie starts to walk away. 

She throws him a look over her shoulder. ‘Tell me that again after you’ve sat ad written about it for two hours, yeah?’

Jamie eats quickly, wants to get back to her cell, away from the bustle of the canteen, wants to get in as much revision as she can before the next exam, if English was bad, Maths was going to be horrendous. She’s not surprised when she gets a phone call that evening, though, Dani’s been calling her most days for the past few weeks, and she knows her behaviour was off today, knows Dani will be worrying about it, about her. 

‘Alright?’ She asks, as she brings the phone to her ear. There’s a pause at the other end, a moment of silence where all that Jamie can hear is the familiar crackle of the prison’s shitty signal on the other end. ‘Hello?’ She asks, a little confused as to why the caller hasn’t greeted her. There’s another moment of silent before Jamie hears the line click off, and she’s left standing in her own confusion, pulls the phone away from her ear as her brow furrows. 

‘Taylor?’ The officer shouting her name gets her attention. ‘Are you going to speak or are you going back to your cell?’ 

God if she could only clock him one, knock that snarky tone out of his arse and shove her foot up it. She clears her throat, straightens. ‘Sorry, must’ve got cut off or something.’

//

Dani does contemplate calling, thinks it over for a while until she decides against it. Owen had told her about his encounter with the brunette, how exam stress is getting to her, she’d seen as much in class, too. She doesn’t want to cause anymore stress, doesn’t know if a phone call from her will put more pressure on Jamie than she’s already under. She wants to, would give anything to hear her voice. It’s a sound she never gets tired of, one she thinks she probably never will. This, though, isn’t about what she wants. This is about Jamie, what she needs is to study, uninterrupted, focus on herself, on her exams. Dani knows this is a big deal for jamie, bigger than she’ll ever truly let on.

She distracts herself with a book, plays a record quietly in the background, busies herself with some laundry, makes herself some soup for dinner, has it with the fresh bread Owen brought over for her earlier. There’s certainly something to be said for having a chef live next door, and one with Owen’s talent, at that. 

As she eats, she glances at the phone, second guesses herself, hopes Jamie doesn’t think she’s ignoring her. She’s overthinking it, like she overthinks most things, picks at her bread for another minute before she makes up her mind. 

‘Oh, hello love.’ Hannah greets her, she’s a little caught off guard when she opens the door to Dani, looks her up and down. ‘Everything alright?’ 

The blonde is clad in her pyjama pants and a white tee, old grey hoodie zipped up halfway, smiles sheepishly and holds up a bottle of wine. ‘Movie night?’ 

//

As much as she tries to focus a on factorisation, Jamie cant quite keep her mind off the stage phone call from earlier. The signal at the prison is shite, always has been, but its never been too much of a problem for a conversation. She studies the sound of the breathing on the end of the line, how it didn’t feel like Dani’s, calm and steady, full of softness. It was harder, somehow, rougher and uneven. 

She shakes the thought from her head, because it reminds her of someone she’s been trying so hard to forget, and surely it cant be. Its not logical, not realistic or rational and she curses herself for even considering it. 

She closes her textbook, she’s lost interest for tonight and its already 10, hopes that if she falls asleep, the nagging thoughts will fade, too. She’s probably overthinking It anyway, makes a mental note to ask Dani the next time she speaks to her before she rolls over, starts the process of attempting to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all seem to be team extend from what i can gather, which is fine by me as i love writing this fic so much!!  
> I’m thinking of starting to do a few unrelated one shots alongside it, if anyone has any prompts or stuff they would like to read let me know here or on twitter (@AMELlASEVE), (also, my curiouscat link is in my bio, in case you don’t want to ask outright)  
> Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoy :)


	16. what then?

Jamie’s pacing the classroom, thumb wedged between her teeth, pulls at loose skin. ‘Well, if it wasn’t you, then who the hell was it?’ She asks, although her question is rhetorical Dani shakes her head.

‘I don’t know, Jamie.’ She keeps her tone level, watches as Jamie continues to walk back and forth across the front of the classroom, pace quickening as her agitation increases. The blonde reaches out, places a hand on Jamie’s forearm as she passes, its enough to still her movements for a moment, gives Dani a second to meet her eyes. ‘Look, maybe they just called the wrong number by mistake?’ she offers. 

Jamie shakes her head vigorously, runs a hand through her hair. ‘No, no.’ She starts slow. ‘I knew I recognised it, the feel of it, the breathing…’ Jamie finally takes a breath, it might be the first one she’s taken since this conversation started. ‘I dunno, it just sounded so familiar, Dani, and not in a good way.’ 

Dani approaches the situation cautiously, knows that Jamie’s on edge, slowly moves her hand from the brunette’s elbow down to her hand, wraps her fingers around Jamie’s and squeezes gently. ‘Hey.’ Her voice is tentative, but she’s careful to steer away from sounding patronising. ‘Take a breath. Whoever it was, they hung up, right?’ There’s a small nod in response. ‘So maybe that’s it then. If it happens again, maybe we can see if they can trace the number or something, yeah?’ 

Jamie lets the silence hang in the air for a moment as she considers Dani’s words of advice, although she can’t imagine the prison wasting their effort on something like that, she’s grateful that the blonde is trying, listening to her while she’d ranted on, and offering a solution when the time was right. ‘Yeah.’ There’s another breath, and Dani tugs Jamie towards her, wraps her arms around her. One hand on the back of her head, threads through messy curls. Jamie melts into the hug. They stay like that for a few moments before Jamie pulls back, emerging from Dani’s arms much calmer than before. ‘I’m sorry, for acting mental… it’s just that most people from my past are in the past for a reason. If someone reaches out, it never usually ends well.’ She perches on the edge of a front row desk.

Dani nods in understanding, moves to sit next to Jamie, who looks at her hands as she fidgets with them In her lap. Dani picks on up holds it between both of hers. ‘Whoever it is, whatever they want – or don’t want – we’ll deal with it, okay?’ She’s ducking to catch Jamie’s gaze, and the brunette cant evade those blue eyes for long. She finally looks up, smiles sheepishly. 

‘Okay.’ Jamie responds. She’s not sure how exactly Dani plans on dealing with her mystery caller, but Jamie trusts her, knows from experience that Dani keeps her promises, always. Her smile spreads across her whole face now, and it’s apologetic, Dani tilts her head in confusion, isn’t sure why Jamie looks so guilty. The brunette clears her throat. ‘Sorry for, uh, wasting all our sex time with my mid life crisis.’ 

Dani softens, her own smile growing. ‘No time spent with you is time wasted.’ She says sincerely, kisses Jamie’s temple and pulls her into her side. 

//

The day of the next exam comes around quickly, and Jamie knows that her strength is English, she tends to be able to muddle her way through most maths problems, but she knows her history with exams, knows that if she loses her cool she probably wont be able to get her hit together again. 

As Dani hands out the papers, her eye is trained on Jamie, watches as she shifts constantly in her seat, flicks her ruler against the side of the desk in a desperate attempt to distract herself from the prospect of flunking this exam completely. When dani reaches her desk, she reaches a hand out, squeezes Jamie’s shoulder. ‘Relax.’ She whispers. ‘Just do your best.’

Jamie nods, thankful for the small assurances Dani gives her, they’re enough to quell her anxiety to a dull ache in the background as she opens the booklet before her, and Dani starts the timer on her desk. ‘Off you go.’ 

Jamie doesn’t look up from her paper this time, eyes constantly scanning the questions, scrawls her working out across the page, because Dani has practically drilled it into them that they need to ‘show their working’. She works until the last minute, when she’s finished she checks and checks again because she can’t afford a silly mistake to cost her a grade. She wants this to be her best work, she owes it to herself, owes it to Dani, too. 

Dani still sneaks glances, every five minutes or so, careful to keep them subtle, eyes creeping over the top of her book, find their way over to Jamie with ease, sometimes they even find her of their own accord, before Dani can make a move to stop them. Dani never gets tired of looking at her, finds that every time she does, theres something new to fall in love with, a quirk of the eyebrow, a hidden freckle, all of them as beautiful as the other. 

When the timer rings, the room fills with sighs, yawns, a gentle rumble of grumbling and shuffling as Dani stands and collects the papers. ‘How’d it go?’ She asks, when she gets to the back corner. 

Jamie shrugs, a familiar response, then sighs and sags her shoulders back against the plastic chair. ‘I answered everything.’ She offers. ‘Just hope it was enough.’ 

Dani picks up her paper, smiles gently. ‘Stay back after class.’ 

So Jamie hangs back, hands in her pockets as she leans against the doorframe. Dani turns to face her. ‘You’re doing great.’ She says, although Jamie doesn’t look up from the floor. Dani’s walking towards her, closing the space Jamie has intentionally left between them. ‘You’re almost done, with these exams, with your sentence. You’ll be out of here before you know it, and then-‘

‘And then what, Dani?’ Jamie’s head snaps up, and she’s aware that her tone is too harsh, which only increases the self hatred she’s currently feeling. ‘So I get out, I’ve not got a penny to my name, nowhere to live, what I did have, Tina’s probably pawned off already for drug money….’ Her fists clenched, jaw tense. ‘They lock us up in here, keep us caged up like animals, then when they let us out, we’re hung out to dry with nothing but the clothes on our backs.’ There’s a small pause, where Jamie shifts, still refuses to look Dani in the eye, knows that if she does, she’ll see sympathy, she doesn’t deserve sympathy, but worse than that, she’ll see hurt, caused by her own fucking inability to control her emotions. ‘Then they wonder why we end up back in here two weeks later.’ She scoffs, shakes her head. ‘Look, I’d better go.’

‘Jamie…’ Dani tries, wants to help, in any way that she can, but knows that she can’t, not while Jamie is like this, too reluctant to accept it. Dani knows that Jamie doesn’t think she deserves it, and it breaks her heart. Jamie’s come a long way since they’d first met all those weeks ago, but she still has a long way to go, they both know that. 

‘I’m sorry.’ Jamie’s still shaking her head, holding up a hand to stop Dani. ‘I’ll be fine, i’ll see you Sunday, yeah?’ She raises her head, but doesn’t meet Dani’s eyes, just smiles in a sort of self deprecating way, her anger is always directed inwards, at herself, its something Dani has picked up on recently, and she understands, knows that growing up the way Jamie has, with no outlet for any emotion she might feel, will ultimately lead to this kind of behaviour. Dani’s worked with enough kids from the system to know that. One day, she’ll talk to Jamie about it, help her to find new outlets for her pain that don’t involve breaking herself down to the ground, but today’s not the day, now’s not the time. 

It’s best to let her calm down herself, come out of this on her own. ‘Okay.’ Dani smiles, tries her best to hide the prickle of guilt in her stomach at not being able to do more, the sadness in her voice at the knowledge that Jamie is in pain. ‘I’ll see you Sunday.’ 

Then she’s gone, scurries out of the room and lets the door swing closed behind her and Dani is left alone, arms folded across her chest. She runs a hand through her hair, flips it back from her face and sighs before going to gather the pile of papers and placing them into an envelope, ready to send to whoever will be marking them. 

//

The next couple of days pass by uneasily. Jamie tries to focus on studying, cramming before the last two papers next week. Her life is a cycle of sleep, eat, study, repeat, and she’s actually all glad about that, keeps her mind off everything else. Jamie has always thrown herself into something else in favour of dealing with her shit, although she knows it isn’t practical, it feels like her only option right now, if she loses control she could end up getting herself into trouble, they’d whack another six months on her sentence for shits and gigs and she’d be stuck here. Although, Jamie is starting to consider that that option might actually be better than her alternative. At least, in here, she has consistency, a roof over her head and three square meals a day if she wants them. 

Maybe she’s better off in here, where she can’t hurt anyone. 

Maybe.

Dani has been equally as restless, going over and over that last interaction with Jamie, second guessing herself. Was there something she could’ve said to make it better? Should she have let Jamie walk away so easily? Had she handled it right? She’s all too aware of her tendency to overthink, but she just can’t shake the image of Jamie walking out of the room, head down, movements tense and fast, like a child running from something they’re frightened of. Dani knows it isn’t her fault, that Jamie has a lot of issues to work through and that it’ll take time for her to grow and heal. She just wishes she could do more. She knows that if love was enough, she’d have Jame in her arms for as long as it took, but unfortunately, it’s going to take more than that. It’s going to take time, and a hell of a lot of work.

Dani is still toying with her own thoughts the next day as she sits at the back of the bus, on her way to visit Jamie. The thought had slipped out, without Dani’s consent, or control, and at first she’d barely even realised it, hadn’t connected the dots. Love. She doubts herself, but she finds that no matter what, she can’t seem to explain it away, not only that, but she doesn’t think she wants to, either. 

Surely that’s what this is, right? Love?

Dani shakes her head, tries to push that debate aside. It’s one for 3am when she’s lying awake on her own, she decides. Right now, she’s just glad that in another hour she’ll be able to see Jamie in person, hopefully she’ll be in a calmer state, and they can talk it out. She can reassure Jamie, then, and reassure herself, too. 

She’s jolted out of her own head, when the bus makes a sort of choking sound, and the vehicle judders to a stop. Dani looks out of the window, checks to see if they’re at a stop, they’re not. At that moment, she sees the smoke coming from the back of the bus, snaking around the corner. Her stomach fills with dread, because there’s no other way she can get to Jamie, and if she misses her slot, the prison definitely won’t make any exceptions. 

Dani watches as the driver gets out, makes his way around the back of the bus and says something into his radio. From the look on his face, Dani has a feeling they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. 

There’s a couple of minutes of silence, the bus filled with the dull murmur of chatter as the passengers speculate on whats going on. Dani sits still, plays with the hem of her jacket impatiently. When the driver finally comes back around front, he faces the expectant passengers. ‘Sorry folks.’ He starts. ‘Engine’s conked out, looks like we’ll be waiting a while for a replacement vehicle. We’re working as quickly as we can and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.’ 

The man doesn’t explain more, he just saunters back to his seat, pulls out a newspaper and a bag of crisps. He’s probably glad for the break, but Dani isn’t. she fidgets in her seat, knows Jamie well enough to know that she’ll already be feeling guilty for what happened the other day, and will likely blame herself if Dani doesn’t show up like she usually did for visitation every week. 

There’s nothing she can do but wait, hope the bus gets there in time but knows realistically how unlikely that is. Dani curses herself for not knowing the area better, well enough to find another way to get to Jamie. Perhaps she should’ve planned for this. 

The minutes are passing slowly, and every time Dani glances at her watch, she loses a little more hope that she’ll make it to see Jamie today. The passengers slowly start to disperse, most of them having lost faith in reaching their destination, too. Soon there’s only a couple of people left, and Dani caves, knows there’s no chance in hell she’s going to get to the prison in time now. She stands from her seat and starts the walk home. 

//

Jamie had been a little on edge about seeing Dani on Sunday, though she knew they both needed it, and seeing Dani’s face always made her feel more at ease, makes whatever she’s carrying feel a little lighter, so when her name is called for visitation, she’s excited, can’t wait herself in those ocean blue eyes, letting the curl of Dani’s lip spread subconsciously to her own. 

She follows the line of inmates to the visitation room, enters and scans each booth, searches for the immediate comfort that comes with Dani’s presence alone. 

She freezes, though, when she reaches the last seat, and her eyes don’t meet gentle, blue, instead, they crash into a cool brown gaze, and Jamie almost vomits on the spot. Her anger is bubbling like a pot boiling over, fingernails digging into her palms. Her heartbeat is thudding against her chest, pounding as it tries to break out, run. Run, that’s what she wants to do, she wants to run until her lungs burn and scream until her throat is raw because how dare she come here, after all this time, with no warning, how dare she show her face after what she did. What’s worse, is she’s actually smiling, a smile that brings back a million moments in time, that attacks her with memories, most of them bad. 

Tina’s smile had never been gentle, never been kind. It always came with a question, a manipulation, a proposition. It’s one of Jamie’s favourite differences between her ex and Dani. Dani’s smile never asks anything of her, or makes her feel anything but warm and safe. It’s a far cry from Tina, from the life she left behind almost a year ago. 

Jamie’s legs carry her toward the booth before her brain can counteract their movement. Perhaps it’s her anger that fuels her, or her need for answers, despite how much she told herself she didn’t need closure, Jamie knows that the reality is the complete opposite. Either way, she’s sitting across from Tina, now. Face to face with her, only separated by two inches of glass. 

Jamie takes the phone from the hook, she doesn’t like how just seeing Tina’s face brings out the parts of her she’s been working so hard to change, and she’s been doing so well. Jamie considers this before her next move, knows that if she really wants to get to her, anger isn’t the way to do it. So, she presses her lips together and leans back in her seat. ‘You’ve got some cheek.’ She comments, the tone of her voice is almost taunting, a world away from the emotions that are simmering, swirling about her stomach and into her chest. ‘Look, Tina, if you’re worried about me grassing you up, don’t be. I’m over it, and I’m over you. I’ve only got two weeks left, and I’m not about to risk that for a scumbag like you, yeah?’ 

Jamie goes to hang up the phone, but Tina calls her name. Spits it out like she always did when she spoke to Jamie, or about her. It was always said like it meant no more than the shit on her shoe, and Jamie knows, now, that that had always been how Tina had seen her, nothing more and nothing less. ‘I need a favour, there’s some stuff I need moving, just a bit of H, nothing major.’

‘Are you mad?’ Jamie tilts her head, decides on keeping up her unbothered ruse. Jamie laughs in her face at her remark. ‘And what on gods green Earth makes you think I’d ever do shit for you again.’ She pauses. ‘Or are we forgetting why I’m behind this glass in the first place?’

Tina’s glare is as cold as ever, it sends shivers down Jamie’s spine, her words prickling every part of her body. Jamie’s struggling to hold down her hatred, but she won’t let Tina control her, not again. That was your own doing, Jamie.’ Tina shifts in her seat, sits forward so that her breath fogs over the glass as she speaks. ‘Now, I’ve tried to ask you nicely, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t be up for that. So lets talk about your classroom activities, eh?’ 

Jamie feels her stomach drop to the floor, doesn’t understand how Tina could know anything. She’d been so careful. ‘What’re you on about, Tina?’ She plays dumb, thanks the years of practice for her exceptional lack of a poker face. 

‘Do you really think I’ve not got my sources?’ Tina smirks. ‘I’ve heard all about you and the pretty blonde American teacher.’

Jamie’s calm exterior is slowly breaking down, losing the battle to her fierce protectiveness of Dani. ‘You can’t prove shit.’ 

Tina’s toying with her, she’s manipulating like she always has and Jamie knows it. That’s what makes it worse. At least before, she didn’t realise it was happening, now she knows exactly how Tina twists her way in, and she still feels powerless to stop it. ‘Maybe.’ The woman smirks. ‘But you’re not exactly in a position to call my bluff, are you? And besides, even if I didn’t, an accusation like that could do some real damage to a teacher’s career. Couldn’t it? Taking advantage of a vulnerable student like that…’ Tina shakes her head, clicks her tongue in disapproval. ‘And I cant imagine it’d go down well with your release date coming, either.’

Jamie’s knuckles are white with the force of her clutching the receiver, her other balled into a fist below the desk, so tight that she barely notices the blood trickling slowly down her wrist from the sharpness of her fingernails against her skin. She shakes her head. ‘You just cant help yourself, can you?’ She spits her words now, eyes burning with rage and she’s barely even trying to hide it anymore. ‘So it was you who called the other day, what checking I was still in here, on hand to do your dirty work?’ 

Tina doesn’t respond to Jamie’s question, just smiles at her smugly. ‘Balls in your court, Jamie. I’ll give you a bell tomorrow, so we can discuss logistics, yeah?’

With that, the woman hangs up the phone, pulls her handbag over her shoulder. As she walks away, she looks behind her, holds her focus on Jame until the last second. Leaves the brunette sitting at the desk, stunned into a lingering silence. 

After a moment, Jamie stands, the anger she’d held in coming out, makes the plastic chair she’d been sat on her first victim as she kicks it across the room. The chatter in the room immediately silences, and before she can even take another breath she’s restrained, large arms wrap around her chest, hold her too tight so that she has no space to struggle, not that she’d ever be that stupid, even in her anger, fighting a guard is a death sentence and everyone knows it. 

‘I’m fine.’ Jamie says, voice rough and desperate. Realising she isn’t struggling, the man loosens his grip slightly. ‘I’m fine.’ She repeats, firmer this time, a statement rather than a pleading attempt to get out of the officer’s grip. He moves his hands to her wrists, cuffs her behind her back. 

Jamie’s just thankful when he takes her back up to her floor, shoves her into her own cell instead of one in solitary, leaves her when he’s locked the door to crumple, she slides her back down the door until she’s sitting on the ground with her knees to her chest. 

Finally alone, Jamie cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ones almost all pure angst  
> I’m sorry (no I’m not) (giggle)  
> let me know what you think!
> 
> Also, I’m still taking requests for any one shots so spend me prompts if you have any :)


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